Controlling corruption or controlling states? : EU and anti-corruption policies : the case of Bulgaria and Romania, 2000-2008

This thesis challenges the idea that the EU anti-corruption policies’ main rationale is to root out corruption. The research hypothesis is that EU anti-corruption policies are used not so much to control corruption as to control and diminish the powers of nation states and to redesign the classic power balance in these democratic states. The actors who end up being empowered are supranational, international and non-governmental entities: the EU/ the European Commission, International Organizations and domestic civil society with a pro-EU agenda. The domestic decision-makers are structurally disempowered by the anti-corruption policies. The lessons derived from the specific experience of Romania and Bulgaria have a general value because their model inspired the recent decision of the European Commission to introduce the same anti-corruption policies across the EU.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:715711
Date January 2017
CreatorsIonescu, Daniela
PublisherUniversity of Birmingham
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7583/

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