Lessons Learnt from the Transplantation and Adaptation Models of Political Integration: A Conclusion

Abstract

Explaining change lies at the heart of the study of history and political science. Much scholarship is devoted to explaining why regimes rise and fall, why certain parties win elections, and why particular policies are implemented. In a period of 15 years from the semifree elections in Poland in 1989 to the enlargement of the EU on 1 May 2004, Europe experienced radical change. Not only did the Eastern half of Germany throw off the shackles of communism, but the post-Second World War political division of the country ended in October 1990 when Germany unified. Another unification of West and East occurred 14 years later when eight former communist states joined a ‘Western’ European club: the EU.