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Abstract
Is Belarus an enviable constant in international relations: a maverick, isolated from the West and inseparable from the East? On the surface, there seems to be business as usual: Lukashenko's regime remains unchallenged; Belarus’ relations with the European Union – spasmodic at best; while its absorption into Russia's Eurasian project continues apace. Yet, some critical disjunctures – manifested in government tacit resistance to Russia's influence, and more instructively, in people's growing affinity with Europe – may indicate a sea-change transformation in the very fabric of society. This article, utilizing extensive and subject-focused research, conducted in the country between 2009 and 2013, examines the nature and causalities of the occurring change. It argues that democracy promotion, in Belarus’ case, may work better when depoliticized and inculcated, through norms, regulations, and practices of international order, into the daily lives of individuals. Through its continued technocratic, inclusive, and sector-level engagement, European Union governance, even under the conditions of limited bilateral dialogue, have succeeded in fostering much-needed space for reciprocal learning and critical reasoning, which may have far greater transformative potential than manufacturing a single collective will for democracy building.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Elena Korosteleva is Professor of International Politics, Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics and Director of the Global Europe Centre (Professional Studies), School of Politics and IR, University of Kent. Her research interests include EU foreign policies, EU governance, democracy promotion and concepts of democracy. Her recent work includes EU Policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood: The Practices Perspective (2014); The EU and its Eastern Neighbours: Towards a more Ambitious Partnership? (2012) and Eastern Partnership: A New Opportunity for the Neighbours? (2011), all published with Routledge.
Notes
2. Wilson, Belarus; Bennett, The Last Dictatorship in Europe.
3. Council of the European Union, Regulations (EC) No. 552/97.
4. Ulakhovich, “Belarus-Evropeiskiy Soyuz,” 3; Danilovich, Russian–Belarusian Integration.
5. De facto Belarus was excluded from the framework of bilateral cooperation; while its multilateral regional engagement had been aided by curtailed funds from the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) 2007–2013 and from 2014, the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI). For more information visit http://www.enpi-info.eu/ENI
6. European Commission, ENP Package – Belarus.
7. See Yahorau's analysis 2013; and also a CFS position paper http://www.eap-csf.eu/assets/files/News/National_Platform_Position_Paper_2013_EN.pdf
8. Author's interviews with European Commission officials and members of the European Parliament.
9. Dragneva and Wolczuk, Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union and the EU, 5.
11. Korosteleva, “Belarusian Foreign Policy in a Time of Crisis.”
12. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Makey's interview, 23 July 2013, http://www.belta.by/ru/all_news/politics/Makej-v-Brjussele-podtverdil-printsipialnye-podxody-Belarusi-k-razvitiju-otnoshenij-s-ES_i_641904.html. and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alena Kupchyna's speech at the Baku EaP summit: http://mfa.gov.by/en/press/news_mfa/fcdf6f3a68f1fd19.html
13. For recent developments see http://www.belinstitute.eu/en/node/2280
14. Lyutova and Tovkailo, Vedomosti, 30 June 2014: www.vedomosti.ru/newsline/news/28324261/ukraina-radelila-tamozhennyj-soyuz
15. The causation of change is a complex phenomenon which may be triggered by a number of factors. In Belarus’ case, a growing public predisposition to the EU should not be solely attributed to the latter's policies alone but rather considered in a wider geostrategic and economic context to account, for example, for Russia's politics. The focus of this article however is on the EU factor, which takes discussion of causation beyond its scope.
16. Bosse, “A Partnership with Dictatorship.”
17. Korosteleva, The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours; Delcour, “The Institutional Functioning of the Eastern Partnership.”
18. This, of course, has been further challenged by the events in Ukraine, and the EU's slow reaction to Russia's aggression.
19. European Commission, A New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood.
20. As transpired from the author's interviews with senior EU officials, the 2011 revisions indeed signified a “new turn” in EU policies to the neighbourhood, partially for the reasons presented in the text; but more so for the new momentum of partnership they had inspired.
21. European Commission, The Bilateral Dimension; European Commission, The Multilateral Dimension.
23. This track has been compromised by the EU's politicization of the AA with Ukraine on the eve of the Vilnius summit.
24. A new instrument which in 2014 succeeded the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument: http://www.enpi-info.eu/main.php?id=27348&id_type=1
25. European Commission, ENP: Working towards a Stronger Partnership.
26. Not only has this sum in some cases quadrupled in the past two years, it also equals about 15% of Belarus’ nominal gross domestic product for 2010, excluding loans and other investments.
28. European Commission, The Multilateral Dimension.
29. ENPI, Belarus: National Indicative Programme 2012–13, Annex 3.
30. ENPI, Belarus: National Indicative Programme 2012–13; ENPI, National Indicative Programme 2012–13 for Belarus.
31. In July 2013 the business forum staged a series of unsanctioned meetings protesting some of the government's decisions regarding the ECU, see http://www.rferl.org/content/Belarusian_Market_Vendors_Strike_Against_New_Regulations/1358394.html. The National Platform recently met up to identify new targets for the modernization plan for Belarus: http://www.eap-csf.eu/en/national-platforms/belarus/
32. See Casier, Korosteleva, and Whitman, Building a Stronger Eastern Partnership, 6 and 8.
33. European Commission, The Multilateral Dimension; European Commission, A Road to the Autumn 2013 Summit.
34. This incidentally was set up at the Belarusian initiative in 2011. See MFA statement at http://mfa.gov.by/en/organizations/membership/list/f1d2b5ac3e69e36f.html
35. Conference of the Regional and Local Authorities for the Eastern Partnership, see http://cor.europa.eu/en/activities/Pages/corleap.aspx
36. The EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly is a forum to promote political association and further economic integration between the EU and the East European partners, see http://www.euronest.europarl.europa.eu/euronest/
37. Petrova and Raube, “The EaP, EuroNest and the Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in the EU Neighbourhood.”
39. European Commission, EU Cooperation for a Successful Eastern Partnership.
41. European Commission, ENP Package – Belarus.
42. European Commission, New EU Support on Health and Development for Belarusian People.
43. European Commission, A Road to the Autumn 2013 Summit; European Commission, EU Cooperation for a Successful Eastern Partnership.
44. Petrova and Raube, “The EaP, EuroNest and the Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in the EU Neighbourhood.”
45. European Commission, Press Release, 8 September 2014, 3.
46. Bosse, “A Partnership with Dictatorship”; Youngs, “European Approaches to Democracy Assistance”; Kubicek, The European Union and Democratization.
47. Füle, “ENP – Priorities and Directions for Change.”
48. Duncan, Democratic Theory and Practice, Introduction.
49. The 2008 survey was funded by the ESRC (RES-061-25-0001) as part of a large project “Europeanising or Securitising the Outsiders: Assessing the EU's Partnership-Building Approach with Eastern Europe”: http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/interpol/research/research-projects/europeanising-securitising-outsiders/researchfindings/. A similar survey was executed in June 2013, with the support of the Office for a Democratic Belarus (ODB). The survey included 1000 respondents, and was stratified, random, and representative of the Belarusian population aged 18+ (urban and rural) by nationality, sex, religion, age, and education. For more information see http://www.kent.ac.uk/politics/gec/research/documents/gec-belarus-survey-brief-2013.pdf
50. EU Neighbourhood Barometer East: euneighbourhood.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ENPIreport_wave2_East.pdf and NISEPI http://www.iiseps.org/analitica
51. Lukashenko, Speech Delivered at the Meeting with BSU Students.
52. http://www.kyivpost.com/content/russia-and-former-soviet-union/russia-belarus-kazakhstan-and-armenia-are-about-to-ratify-the-eurasian-economic-union-364921.html (accessed 17 September 2014).
53. The new debate on democracy promotion underscores the need to pluralize and contextualize the concept for its promotion to be enduring. See Kurki for a more recent discussion on the contestation and pluralization of different types of democracy, “Democracy and Conceptual Contestability,” 365.
54. Kurki, Causation in International Relations.
55. Joffe, “The European Union, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in Maghreb”; Youngs, “European Approaches to Democracy Assistance”; Pace, “Paradoxes and Contradictions in EU Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean”; Bosse, “A Partnership with Dictatorship.”
56. Bosse, “A Partnership with Dictatorship,” 367.
57. Ibid., 379.
58. Ibid., 380.
59. Korosteleva, The Impact of Targeted Sanctions on Belarus.
60. Jahn, “Rethinking Democracy Promotion,” 686–687.
61. Ibid., 692.
62. Ibid., 702–703.
63. Petrova, and Raube, “The EaP, EuroNest and the Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in the EU Neighbourhood.”
64. Jahn, “Rethinking Democracy Promotion,” 703.
65. Adler and Pouliot, International Practices.
66. Chandler, “Democracy Unbound?,” 43.
67. Ibid., 44.
68. Ibid., 46.
69. Ibid., 56.
70. Michael Murphy (NDI), Presentation at “Belarus Reality Check”, Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Riga, 11 September 2014.
71. Flockhart, “Complex Socialization.”