Elena Klitsounova

Issue Area: The Challenge of Wider Europe

Making the European Human Rights Policy

Attractive and Effective for Russia:

The Role and Strategy of NGOs in Knowledge/Policy Transfer

Background

The “Wider Europe” grand project is still a work-in-progress, and if it is to become a reality it must involve the development of common values, norms, and policy practices shared by the enlarged EU and its new neighbors.

The extent to which such initiatives can be utilized depends on political will and resources of both the EU and its neighbors. In this context, the questions of strategic choice are as follows: for the EU, whether and to what extent it is able to expand democratic norms and practices to regions and countries where they do not yet exist or where they are not yet deeply embedded; for EU neighbors, if and to what extent they are willing and able to accept common European ideas and practices. 

The enlargement of the European Union is fundamentally changing the face of the region. Its transformative effects expand beyond the borders of the EU and range across a great number of policy areas. In the process of the recent eastward enlargement, the EU has developed an ambitious external governance agenda which is in large part about the transfer of EU rules, norms and practices to those EU’s neighbours which are eager to join the Union. Yet, it is not clear whether the policy of externalisation of European norms, values and institutions will be effective in the relations with those EU’s neighbours which do not aim at joining the EU as a member state.

The main focus of the proposed project is on the process of transferring European norms and values to Russia. The issues of common political values, democratic institutions, an effective civil society, and human rights figure more and more prominently in the Russian-EU relations. They have an institutionalized place in Russia’s dialogue with European institutions. Yet, one can easily notice the continuing ambivalence over the degree to which Russia shares or even could and should share European and EU-sponsored values. Russian leadership, all the rhetoric notwithstanding, does not seem to have finalized the decision on the extent to which it should tailor Russia’s political modernization in accordance to the European standards. At the same time, it must be said that the EU and other European actors reveal ambiguity of priorities in their policies toward Russia. EU policy-makers seem to prefer modest, fragmentary, and narrow topics for the dialogue the EU is having with Russia on political values.

The question is how implacably determined are Russian and European leaders to develop common policy responses to many challenges posed by new economics, new security, and new society. The question also is if and how knowledge about policies, institutions and ideas developed in the EU and its member-states are used by the Russians in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas for Russia.

Project assumptions

The proposed project aims to examine how ideas, norms, and practices in area of human rights are exported across European borders; to analyse the impact of European norms and practices upon Russia; to broaden our understanding on if and how knowledge about policies, institutions and ideas developed in European institutions are used by the Russians in the development of the norms, institutions, and policies regarding human rights.

The project proceeds on several assumptions:

1) the Russia-EU dialogue on human rights issues constitutes one of the most active and sustained attempts to address the role of European values in both Russia’s political development and Russia’s future relations with Europe. In this context, Russia is already engaged in a process of convergence on modern European values and norms through the interaction of several dynamics, including:

- the legally binding norms of the Council of Europe for democracy and human rights leading to the institutionalisation of these norms at the domestic level. Such institutionalisation includes the restructuring of domestic institutions according to European rules and the change of domestic political practices according to European standards;

- the transformation of interests and practices of Russian actors as a result of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe and increasing cooperation with the EU;

- the transformation of values and identities at the societal level. 

All these dynamics involve different forms of policy, norms and rules transfer. 

2) The policy transfer occurs through a number of processes and can involve a wide variety of actors. Yet, any interpretations of such transfer must now take into account the significance of non-state actors involved in the export of ideas and policies across Europe. The impact of non-state transfer agents is difficult to gauge but it is likely to have a deep impact on the future of Wider Europe project.

The last decade represents a unique time of a profound transformation in policy-making in Central and Eastern Europe. After the collapse of the Soviet system, a rich variety of non-state actors became involved in activities aimed to provide alternative sources of ideas and information and to break down state's monopoly over policy analysis and policy-making. Additionally, over the past two decades of post-Soviet transformation there has been an explosion in the number of non-state actors involved in cross-national exchange of ideas, policy and practice. 

Therefore, it is not surprisingly that much attention has been drawn to the rise and evolution of non-governmental organizations in post-Soviet states. Yet, most analysis tends to neglect the fact that many NGOs are trying to build regional and international (policy) networks and act as transfer agents. Almost nobody denies that non-state actors have impact on the export of ideas, norms and practices in Wider Europe, but we do not know enough about the non-governmental domain of cross-border policy transfer.

The proposed research aims to broaden understanding of policy transfer across European borders by providing more insights into the roles and strategies of non-state actors involved in transfer of European democratic norms and practices. The conceptual background of the project is to be formulated in terms of institutionalism. The focus will be on institutional factors shaping the knowledge/policy transfer across European borders, including existing policy-making bodies, programs, institutions, and organizations that have an impact on the state of relations between the EU and its new neighbours. This approach will be supplemented by attention to the issues of state-civil society relations and the role of NGOs for Wider Europe project (drawing upon conceptualisations developed within the trans-nationalist literature). This project suggests that it is necessary to look at role of agency when trying to demonstrate how transfer occurs.

Project design

The project comprises two main components: theoretical and empirical.

The theoretical part explores the academic and political debate on policy transfer in general and its non-governmental domain in particular.

The empirical part of the project aims to provide insights into the domestic context in which Russian NGOs act as transfer agents; into constrains and opportunities for Russian NGOs involvement in the expansion of European democratic norms and practices; into changing landscapes of co-operation on democracy and human rights issues between Russian and European actors. In particular, the empirical part involves research into the structure of obligations and incentives, demanded and offered by Russia’s membership of the Council of Europe. The membership of the Council of Europe entails as conditions that Russia should subscribe not only to general principles of democracy, but also to the precise and legally binding European Convention of Fundamental Freedoms and Human Rights, and thence the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Therefore, a digest of the work of the European Court of Human Rights offers opportunity to analyse cases demanding compliance from Russia with the European norms of human rights, cases of institutional learning.  In addition, associated training and seminar activities sponsored by the Council of Europe offer a rich material to analyse “soft” forms of transfer, i.e. transfer of knowledge, information and expertise. The proposed project addresses the diffusion of ideas regarding human rights and focus on the agency of non-state actors in the spread of these ideas.

The empirical analysis of the case study will use the following data sources:

Data collected via analysis of institutional documents, reports and similar Council of Europe related materials;

Data collected via interviews with a number of civil society organizations engaged in cooperation with the Council of Europe;

Data collected via problematic and biographical in-depth interviews with a number of Russian and European officials closely involved in the activities of the Council of Europe.

This case-study will be concerned with cross-national and sub-national (cross-regional) modes of policy transfer. It will focus on NGOs’ involvement in the export of European human rights norms and practices and the expansion of these norms and practices to Russia’s regions where they do not yet exist. Although focusing on the “ Council of Europe case” and aiming to highlight the problems and alternatives of the specific experience, this project is intended to serve more broadly as background material for recommendations to NGOs from the region.

Project tasks

Based on the empirical findings the research aims to:

ü      outline transfer activities of states, international organizations, and non-state actors, and analyze the dilemmas and contradictions in the process of cross-Europe transfer (in the area of human rights); contribute to understanding of policy transfer processes in the complex multilateral “Wider European” environment;

ü      analyze the policy transfer capabilities of NGOs;

ü      identify the key challenges and obstacles to NGOs’ attempts to promote European democratic norms and practices in Russia; define the criteria for successful and non-successful NGOs’ involvement as transfer agents;

ü      draw conclusions on the best practices and refine recommendations regarding successful strategies for NGOs.

Research results

The final product of the research will be a 20-page policy paper destined for the project target groups. The policy paper with research findings will be presented to the target groups in the form of special publications, containing recommendations on how to expand European human rights norms and practices to regions where they are not yet deeply embedded.