In reaction to the upheavals in the Arab world the EU upgraded its human and democracy support by enforcing the conditionality component of foreign aid in its Neighborhood Policy. According to this ‘more-for-more’ approach, incentives such as market access, visa facilitation and financial support are increasingly linked to the countries’ performance in democratic reform. This policy shift to a more performance-related approach is also reflected in the EU development policy where, in the future, the amount of assistance shall depend on the level of political change in partner countries.
Existing studies point to the importance of a credible conditionality policy in order to have any impact in the partner country. The literature defines ‘credibility’ from the perspective of the donor, e.g. in terms of consistent application and precise definition of criteria. However, experiences with the EU’s enlargement policy and the Eastern Partnership have shown that donors and recipients differ in their assessment of the credibility of incentives. We argue that it is not the objective offer of rewards by the donor but the subjective perception by the recipient which determines the credibility of conditionality and thus its effectiveness. We empirically explore this argument by contrasting conditionality in the enlargement policy and the Eastern neighborhood. While Turkey has been objectively offered the membership perspective as main incentive, the actual accession is subjectively not assessed as credible. In turn, in Ukraine in the first years after the colored revolution the government self-imposed accession conditionality and subjectively anticipated to be finally rewarded with accession although objectively no such an incentive has been offered by the EU. Taken domestic perceptions into account, this paper offers a new perspective on the effectiveness of political conditionality and foreign aid.
