If Europeanisation research provides for a European „route‟ to the transformation process of domestic politics, the post-communist transition literature offers a „bottom-up‟ way to the same question of institutional development. In this respect, both literatures run largely in parallel, meaning that they capture partial, though important, elements of a circular and dynamic process. Rather than rejecting ex ante the key findings and assumptions prominent in the conditionality-centred (rationalist) theorisation of „candidate Europeanisation‟ literature, this study builds on them by situating the analysis in a time-sensitive and history-oriented research design (HI) in an attempt to capture the much
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neglected „bottom-up‟ dimension of „institutional development‟ (cf. Thelen, 1999, 2003, 2004; Pierson, 2004).
Explanatory frameworks sensitive to domestic factors and time are indispensable for a careful evaluation of how EU rules are perceived and institutionalised in the domestic context (see Radaelli, 2003; Haverland, 2005; Radaelli and Pasquier, 2007; Vink and Graziano, 2007; Zubek, 2008; Stolfi, 2008; Goetz, 2009; Bulmer, 2009; Elbasani, 2009).
Yet, as opposed to the „top-down‟ Europeanisation frameworks (Caporaso, 2007;
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005b) which start at the EU level and then track down the implications of EU exigencies on domestic polities, politics, and policies (Börzel and Risse, 2003) or the pure „bottom-up‟ frameworks that begin and finish at the domestic level without taking into consideration how foreign stimuli affect domestic processes, this study endorses a „bottom-up-down‟ view to the complex phenomenon of domestic institutional development (cf. Vink and Graziano, 2007; Radaelli and Pasquier, 2007).
In particular, a „bottom-up-down‟ view traces patterns of adaptation, by first inquiring into the domestic institutional priors and systems of interaction, then „climbing up‟ to the European level, that is, establishing the European demands in each particular area, and then descending downwards to gauge the outcomes of „Europeanisation‟ in light of each country‟s domestic idiosyncracies (Radaelli and Pasquier, 2007; Haveralnd, 2005, 2007;
Vink and Graziano, 2007). Adherents of the approach argue further, that only by bringing domestic- and EU-related variables in the same explanatory framework „can one evaluate the relative importance of each‟ (Stolfi, 2008: 551). Thus, the main aim is to „unpack‟ the process of institutional development in all of its temporal stages (pre-communist, communist, post-communist) and check if, when, and how the EU provides a change in any of the main components of the system of interaction over time (Radaelli, 2003).
The links between the Piersonian notions of causality and time are apparent. In this respect,
„bottom-up-down‟ analytical designs aim to bring more nuanced assessments on the shaping role of domestic factors in the process of EU rule politicisation, institutionalisation or circumscription in the domestic arena. First, by „situating Europe in the logic of domestic political action‟ (Radaelli and Franchino, 2004: 951), the framework focuses on whether the outcome in question has been brought about clearly as a result of EU influence or other endogenous and/or exogenous sources of change. Thus, „Europeanisation‟ is
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treated as one of the possible intervening variables rather than a strong independent factor of change in itself. Second, designs that bring forward the role of domestic political variables are focused in the „politicisation‟ aspect of the process of institutional development, that is, in the processes of interplay (Goetz, 2002) or „mutual evolution‟
(Olsen, 2000) of the domestic and EU structures. The implication is that bottom-up-down designs with their inherent narrow scope of analysis move from macro-level grand assessments of regime change to meso- and/or micro-level analyses of institutional development. In other words, they climb down the „ladder of abstraction‟. In so doing, they are better suited to detecting elements of divergence in what would have otherwise looked as convergence in the macro-level and/or as a rapid change. Thus, such designs are more apt to unscramble the modes of domestic emulation resulting from EU pressure as well as detect cases of „selective‟ (Jacoby, 2004) or „shallow Europeanisation‟ (Goetz, 2000:
1032).
Third, „bottom-up-down‟ frameworks pay increasing attention to the implementation stage of reform (Sverdrup, 2007: 197). Much like mainstream „Europeanisation‟ studies, the emphasis is on identifying the domestic factors (be it institutions or actors) that refract or mitigate the impact of EU influence. Studies of path-dependence suggest that the domestic institutional context channels reform impulses and tends to stick to established pathways.
In this respect, the effectiveness of EU pressures to incite paradigmatic change is hypothesised to „suffer‟ at the implementation phase in light of the constraints that governments face at the domestic level. The „hollowing out‟ of what has been negotiated between the target government and the international community (including the EU) during the implementation stage has been increasingly linked to the notion of effectiveness of external rule transfer in the post-communist context (see Hughes et al. 2004; Jacoby, 2004;
Goetz, 2005). For instance, Grabbe (2006: 63) argues:
„The issue is more what happens after policies were transferred from one body to the other. Large-scale transfer of EU rules into national law in CEE certainly occurred, but what happened when the policies were implemented? […] the model has to be expanded in the implementation phase, moving beyond its current focus on the emergence of transfer networks to encompass the phase between process and outcome‟.
Overall, Arolda Elbasani (2009: 9) provides a telling summary of the virtues of this approach and is worth quoting at length,
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„By tracing the process and dynamics of change in all its stages, the bottom up approach tends to go beyond a simple „external incentive model‟ predicting emulation once the EU rewards alter domestic actors‟ political opportunities in favour of reform. Instead, it aims to embody elite choices more readily in their domestic context and to foresee the tendency of institutional transfers to stick to established pathways, although the EU conditionality can be seen as an opening or critical juncture that facilitates the transposition of new rules. At the same time it can show how and to what extent the new rules can be played out by the purposeful domestic agency operating under constrains of structural legacies and behavioural patterns, which finally determine the „shape‟ of EU transfers into the domestic arena‟ (author‟s emphasis).
To conclude, „bottom-up-down‟ Europeanisation contextualises European integration within the domestic trajectory of institutional evolution and, in so doing, checks whether the former has by any account influenced the (ongoing) course of state- and society-building development (i.e., the formation, consolidation and equilibrium of a political system; see Radaelli and Pasquier, 2007: 42). The next section works out the details of the explanatory framework adopted in this study.