Introduction

 

The decline of the Soviet Union was one of the 20th century’s biggest changes to the global geopolitical structure in general, and Europe in particular. Together with the rise of China, which started right after and continues until today, it has changed the interstate relationship in many ways. One might argue that the change of the international structure had an influence on the state level and the domestic social contract of selected nations. One of these events, the decline of the Soviet Union, can be seen as a boost for democratization and liberalization. This led Francis Fukuyama to argue that humanity has reached the “End of History” and that it has proven that the liberal democratic state will dominate the future. The second event, the rise of China, definitely questions this interpretation because China’s values and principles are not compatible with those of Western nations. Therefore, the analysis of Fukuyama received criticism from many scholars. In this paper, I will focus on East European countries and how they have reacted to this new global world structure, which forced them to re-orient themselves as they were under the heavy influence of the Soviet Union. While each country’s situation was unique, we can draw various similarities between their reactions. One possible change is the closer relationship with Western Europe. After the end of the Second World War, the project of integration among the states in West Europe, which was led by France and Germany, ended in the establishment of the European Union (EU). The closer relationship of the Eastern European countries to the West, resulted in some of them getting to be part of the EU. This influenced the newly joined states as well as the structure of the EU and its global position. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism and implication of integration of new countries into the EU. This process will be analysed using the example of Poland. Poland joined the EU on the beginning of the year 2004, and I will be analysing the effects of this integration for both Poland and the EU, with a special focus on the economic and political aftermath.

However, because of the limited length of this paper, I will focus solely on the benefits and positive aspects of the integration, disregarding the difficulties for a later date.

Literature Review

 

There is a broad literature regarding the rapid changes in the political and economic systems in the period after the end of the Cold War. Stuart Shields (2014) has done a study for Poland and called the transition a shock therapy of rapid liberalization. With the stop of subsidies and the privatization of many state-owned companies, the neoliberal era had started and has changed the internal politics drastically. An interesting paper by Aleks Szczerbiak (2016), analysed the effect of the social structure, especially the role of the Catholic Church, on European Integration of Poland. He argues that Poland is an interesting case study because it witnessed momentous events during the last century and therefore had many different internal opinions which made an integration to the EU more complicated.

Additionally, there is a broad theoretical literature about regional integration, which mainly applies and focuses on the EU. In general, two different streams of theories can be observed: The Functionalism and the Intergovernmentalism. Both try to explain and predict the steps of integration into a regional institution. Functionalism (Mitrany, 1943), which later got further developed by Haas (1958) and Lindberg (1963) to Neofunctionalism, follows a liberal perspective of international relations. They do argue that there are problems across European borders and mutual dependencies among the different states. This will lead to new supra-national institutions and a transfer of sovereignty to a new body. Once this happens there will be so-called “spill-overs” and further integration in new areas, which are related to the one before. Intergovernmentalism, developed by Hoffmann (1982), argue a realist approach to integration. They see the government as the key factor for integration. Only if the states have common interests and objectives, they will agree on an integration process.

 

Analysis

 

In this part I want to focus on three main aspects: the economic benefits of the market integration out of a liberal perspective, the change of interstate-relationship for Poland in a regional and global context, and the change of the security issue, as one of Susan Strange´s IPE structures.

Following a liberal economic view, the allocation of resources is best accomplished by markets, which are regulated by the laws of supply and demand. Depending on the stream of liberalism, different degrees of state intervention might be necessary. One important part of the EU is its common domestic market. In theory, there are two benefits of this shared market. Through the division of labour, as it was proposed by Adam Smith, and through the increased trade among countries, following the ideas of David Ricardo, the GDP will rise. Through the growth of the economy, following a liberal perspective, everyone will benefit of this system.

Poland got part of the common domestic market together with its EU membership in the year 2004. Brown et al. (1995) have described two different ways of how Poland could benefit from that. They call them static and dynamic gains. First, static gains emerge out of an increased efficiency of resource allocation. This, for example, enables the shift away from expensive domestic producers to cheaper suppliers out of other EU countries. Through the decrease of market distortions across borders like tariffs, subsidies or difficult bureaucracy, trade increases. Second, dynamic gains result from increased scale effects and easier transfer of technology. This increases the productivity of Poland´s companies, which further results in economic growth. Schrooten (2006) has studied the influence of the market integration of Poland two years after it happened. He came to a thoroughly positive conclusion. The GDP grew significantly, and inflation got lower. However no real change could be observed in the trade of Poland with other European countries. This reason for this might be that Poland was already well integrated before joining the EU. Additionally, Poland benefited from funds provided by the EU to support its new members.

The second aspect of analysis focuses on the changed inter-state relationship, one of the discovered levels of analysis of Kenneth Waltz. In general, the project of the EU resulted in a strengthening of European positions. After the catastrophe of the Second World War, the remarkable establishment of peace and stability is one of the success of the EU. At the time of Poland’s integration, this success was already somewhat forgotten or taken for granted by some. The focus has shifted to a strong EU entity in a global context. To date, this has only been achieved to a limited extent. National interests continue to play an important role and unity of the EU in political global issues is therefore not always given. But on an economic level the EU has managed to become a strong global player. According to Eurostat (2017) the EU reached a similar economic volume as the US and China. All three of them have a GDP of slightly over 13 000 billion dollars (with adjusted prices according to PPS). To reach the same size as the two big global players, an integration of more countries has been necessary. Without the integration of the former Eastern European countries, including Poland, the economic size of the EU would be significantly smaller than today. This allows the EU to have stronger bargaining positions when it comes to international politics. One institution where you can observe this increased influence is the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO is a member-driven organisation and these members normally are national states. The EU is an exception and is a member as a whole organisation. This enables the EU to develop a strong position in mattersrelating to global trade.

The last aspect to be discussed is the change to the security structure. Security is one of Susan Strange´s four structures to analyse International Political Economy. The security structures of a country deals with threats or actions of other states and nonstate actors. During the Cold War, the world was clearly divided into a bipolar system which led to bloc building behind its two leaders: the United States and the Soviet Union. Following realist philosophers, such as Morgenthau, this structure makes the world safer and reduces the likelihood of war. During that time Poland was under the influence of the Soviet Union, which provided security. After the decline of the Soviet Union, this security disappeared, and Poland had no longer a strong power as protector. In this situation Poland decided to orientate itself in the direction of Western Europe. An important step, regarding the security structure, is the entry to NATO in the year 1999. This provided the necessary security and was the first step in its integration, which later ended in membership to the EU. The NATO membership surely benefitted for Poland, but it also helped the US and Western Europe gain a strategic military position within Russia’s vicinity.

Conclusion

 

The decline of the Soviet Union has changed the international position of Poland in many ways. It affected the political as well as the economic dimension. In both spheres, Poland has decided to orientate itself towards Western Europe. This benefited not only Poland, but also West Europe and the EU. These findings should not be forgotten in the current debate. Since 2015, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) is in power in Poland and has put forward a series of controversial measures overhauling the Polish judiciary. This led to tensions between the EU and Poland, as the EU sees their values and principles violated. This issue needs to be discussed in a separate paper. But to end this paper I argue that both Poland and the EU should be interested in further cooperation, as both of them have benefited from it in the past.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Brown, Drusilla. K., Deardorff, Alan. V., Djankov, Simeon D., & Stern, Robert. M. (1995). An economic assessment of the integration of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland into the European Union. University of Michigan Discussion Paper, (380).

 

Shields, Stuart. (2014). The international political economy of transition: Neoliberal hegemony and Eastern Central Europe’s transformation. Routledge.

 

Schrooten, Mechthild. (2006). Polen im EU-Binnenmarkt: Eine Bilanz nach zwei Jahren. Osteuropa, 56(11/12), 127–131.

 

Szczerbiak, Aleks (2016), “A Model for Democratic Transition and European Integration? Why Poland Matters,” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 8(1): 221–236. Received 6 August

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