Status quo bias or institutionalisation for reversibility? The EU's political conditionality, post-accession tendencies and democratic consolidation in Slovakia

The EU's political conditions have been a consistent and at times salient element in the accession process, since Brussels enlarged their scope and tightened procedures from the mid-1990s. But so far little attention has been given to post-accession compliance with these conditions. This is important, for while the European Commission no longer monitors them, the political conditions were imperfectly implemented by the time of the 2004 enlargement. The question that therefore arises is whether compliance continues or whether there are any tendencies to reverse the process. Using a comparative approach based on four alternative hypotheses, this problem is explored in detail using the case of Slovakia, a country where the EU has been a prominent factor in its return to the path of democratisation after the Meciar years. Comparing Slovakia's performance on the EU political conditions before EU entry in 2004 and during the three years after, two competing approaches, 'rationalist' and 'constructivist', are assessed. It is found that the fears of the rationalists have not been strongly justified nor have the hopes of the constructivists been much encouraged. The outcome of political conditionality is related to democratic consolidation in Slovakia, and the conclusion is that the former assisted the latter despite its limitations but much more with respect to reforming institutions than to changing either attitudes or behaviour.