2009 Headlines
Elena Iankova Authors Business, Government, and EU Accession:
Strategic Partnership and Conflict
New book examines the impact of EU accession on the relationship between business and government
June 22, 2009 | Ithaca, NY | Elena A. Iankova, lecturer of international business at the Johnson School at Cornell University, has written a new book that examines the intersection between business, government and EU accession. Business, Government, and EU Accession is a detailed study of how EU accession impacts the relationship between business and government in the acceding country. Iankova identifies three major mechanisms by which the EU has affected business-government interactions: first, the legal conditionalities and harmonization efforts for EU entry; second, the pre-accession and anticipated post-accession financial assistance with its specific priorities and requirements; and third, the capacity building and learning that arises from efforts to adapt to the EU conditionalities of membership.
Through addressing the question of EU influence on in-country institutional relationships, Iankova highlights patterns of Europeanization that develop in those relationships a result of the adaptation pressures of EU accession, and traces the effectiveness of these adaptive relationships in facilitating the preparedness of an EU-acceding country for EU entry. Using Bulgaria as a case study, she examines the mechanisms and effectiveness of these interactions, revealing difficulties with and resistances to applying an EU-designed model of institutional change in post-Communist regions.
"The consequences of EU accession have been a strongly contested theme in the literature on post-Communist Eastern Europe. In this excellent volume, Elena Iankova uses the lens of changing business-government relations to show how accession has its effects. Professor Iankova traces how legal conditionality, financial aid, and pressures for capacity building served to fundamentally change—and even constitute—the political relationship between the state and the private sector," comments Stephan Haggard, professor in the Graduate School of International Relations, University of California, San Diego.
About the Author
Elena A. Iankova is lecturer in international business at The Johnson School at Cornell University. Iankova's expertise and research interests are in the area of business, government and civil society relations. Her book Eastern European Capitalism in the Making (Cambridge University Press, 2002) traces the metamorphosis of this relationship in the post-communist region after the fall of communism. She has been awarded a German Marshall Fund Fellowship, a National Council for Eurasian and East European Research grant, and a U.S. Department of Education fellowship to conduct research on the new Europe after the fall of communism. At the Johnson School, Iankova teaches MBA-level courses Business in Emerging Markets, Business in the European Union, Global Business Risk Management, and Global Citizenship. She received her master's and PhD degrees from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and her undergraduate degree in sociology from Sofia University, Bulgaria.
About the Book
Business, Government, and EU Accession
By Elena A. Iankova
Published by Lexington Books
ISBN: 978-0-7391-3057-5
