Partnership, Governance or Hegemony by Other Means? The transformation of armed forces in central and eastern Europe.

Over the last decade, in the fields of civil-military relations and development, engagement between donor and recipients, has taken place based on the twin concepts of conditionality and what donors have termed ‘good governance.’ State actors, aid agencies and international organisations have used the idea of ‘good governance’ as a new way of conceptualising reform processes. It has been viewed by donors as a means to embed norms, values, procedures and practices in recipient states and is widely considered by donors to be a particularly effective mechanism to create circumstances that make these changes durable. Recipient states have often been critical of the idea of good governance, but since much transition assistance has been based on conditionality, their criticisms are rarely aired in public. Examining changes since 1989, this paper explores engagement between West European governments, NATO and governments in central and eastern Europe in the process of transition of postcommunist armed forces. It explores how ‘good governance’ has been applied to the reform of postcommunist armed forces in two areas: democratic civilian control of the armed forces and professionalisation of armed forces. In examining these two issues, this paper highlights the ways in which ‘good governance’ has broadened the agenda of the reform process, extended reform from ‘first’ to ‘second’ generation reform issues and located these changes within a liberal democratic value system. However this paper also examines the extent to which the concept of ‘good governance’ is being used by donors to transfer inappropriate and often dysfunctional policies onto recipient states and it goes on to examine the motivations and range of benefits to donors of using ‘good governance’ in the transformation of postcommunist armed forces. This paper concludes by exploring the extent to which the concept of ‘good governance’ is being used to reinforce existing power relationships of both state and military networks in a new European security regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]