Reluctant donors? The Europeanization of international development policies in the New Member States

The European Union (EU) played an instrumental role in re-starting the international development policies in central and eastern European Member States, but questions remain about how far this policy area has been Europeanized since accession. Focusing on the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, this article investigates why the new donors have been reluctant to adopt the EU's development acquis more fully. The article traces the socialization processes offered by the EU's development policy rule-making and subsequent national rule implementation. The conclusions reveal three reasons why socialization has been weak: perceptions among the new Member States on the procedural legitimacy of the development acquis; low domestic resonance with the development acquis; and inconsistencies in the activities of norm entrepreneurs. The article contributes to our understanding of development policy in the EU – particularly how decision-making takes place within the Council and its working groups post-enlargement.

New Europe’s new development aid

This book examines the international development policies of five East Central European new EU member states, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. These countries turned from being aid recipients to donors after the turn of the millennium in the run-up to EU accession in 2004. The book explains the evolution subsequent to EU accession and current state of foreign aid policies in the region and the reasons why these deviate from many of the internationally agreed best practices in development cooperation. It argues that after the turn of the millennium, a 'Global Consensus' has emerged on how to make foreign aid more effective for development. A comparison between the elements of the Global Consensus and the performance of the five countries reveals that while they have generally implemented little of these recommendations, there are also emerging differences between the countries, with the Czech Republic and Slovenia clearly aspiring to become globally responsible donors. Building on the literatures on foreign policy analysis, international socialization and interest group influence, the book develops a model of foreign aid policy making in order to explain the general reluctance of the five countries in implementing international best practices, and also the differences in their relative performance.

Spillovers from foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe:an index for measuring a country’s potential to benefit from technology spillovers

In the paper, we construct a composite indicator to estimate the potential of four Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to benefit from productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector. Such transfers of technology are one of the main benefits of FDI for the host country, and should also be one of the main determinants of FDI incentives offered to investing multinationals by governments, but they are difficult to assess ex ante. For our composite index, we use six components to proxy the main channels and determinants of these spillovers. We have tried several weighting and aggregation methods, and we consider our results robust. According to the analysis of our results, between 2003 and 2007 all four countries were able to increase their potential to benefit from such spillovers, although there are large differences between them. The Czech Republic clearly has the most potential to benefit from productivity spillovers, while Poland has the least. The relative positions of Hungary and Slovakia depend to some extent on the exact weighting and aggregation method of the individual components of the index, but the differences are not large. These conclusions have important implications both the investment strategies of multinationals and government FDI policies.

Aid allocation of the emerging Central and Eastern European donors

This paper examines the main characteristics of the (re-)emerging foreign aid policies of the Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), concentrating on the allocation of their aid resources. I adopt an econometric approach, similar to the ones used in the literature, for analysing the aid allocation of the OECD DAC donors. Using this approach, I examine the various factors that influence aid allocation of the Visegrád countries, using data for the years between 2001 and 2008. The most important conclusion is that the amount of aid a partner country gets from the four emerging donors is not influenced by the level of poverty or the previous performance of the recipients (measured by the level of economic growth or the quality of institutions). The main determining factor seems to be geographic proximity, as countries in the Western Balkans and the Post-Soviet region receive much more aid from the Visegrád countries than other recipients. Historical ties (pre-1989 development relations) and international obligations in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq are also found to be significant explanatory factors. This allocation is in line with the foreign political and economic interests of these new donors. Although there are clear similarities between the four donors, this paper also identifies some individual country characteristics.

Irrelevant or transformative power? The OECD DAC and foreign aid policies in Central and Eastern Europe

The paper examines the impact of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) on the emerging foreign aid policies of the Central and Eastern European (CEEs) countries. The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the DAC in 2013, and the committee has aimed to socialise them into the norms of the international development system. Generally, however, there is little evidence of impact due to the soft nature of the DAC’s policy recommendations, and the fact that the committee, reacting to the challenges to its legitimacy from non-Western donors, has become much less demanding towards potential members than in the past. The paper, however, argues that one must examine the processes of how the norm and policy recommendations of the DAC are mediated domestically. The case of the Czechepublic’s reforms in its foreign aid policy between 2007 and 2010 shows that domestic actors can use the OECD strategically to build support for their own cause and thus achieve seemingly difficult policy reform.