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The Instrumental Use of European Union Conditionality: Regionalization in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Numerous Central and Eastern European countries have restructured their regional level of public administration in the context of their accession to the European Union. Focusing on the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the article studies how the EU has influenced the institutionalization of regions and regional self-government. Regionalization may have been driven mainly by EU conditionality or, as a competing explanation suggests, more by domestic factors. The article argues that the EU altered the opportunity structure faced by domestic actors but that its role was more complementary than decisive. Czech and Slovak governments instrumentalized a perceived EU conditionality to promote their own political objectives. These findings demonstrate that a top-down concept of conditionality lends itself to fallacies and should be substantiated by reconstructing the domestic politics of Europeanization.

Key Words: Czech Republic • Slovakia • regionalization • conditionality • European Union • Europeanization

East European Politics & Societies, Vol. 19, No. 2, 291-316 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0888325404272063


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