Skip to main content

Success in slow motion: The Europeanization of Romanian child protection policy

The Review of International Organizations volume 4, pages 111–133 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

This paper analyzes the influence of the European Union (EU) through a qualitative case study of child protection policy in Romania. This is a particularly tough case for the growing “Europeanization” literature. Prior research has called attention to several factors that promote Europeanization, including the presence of a pro-reform domestic coalition, the clarity and consistency of the EU’s own legislative targets, a state’s own prior involvement in the setting of European standards, a strong consensus among EU member states backing the European position, and strong non-European support for EU initiatives. According to these propositions, Romanian child protection seemed to provide a worst case scenario for Europeanization, as initially none of these conditions held. And yet the paper shows that substantial Europeanization occurred anyway. We argue that the EU experienced a very slow start with Romania but that it cultivated an opposition that responded to EU initiatives when that opposition took power. Moreover, the EU found three “workarounds” to the obstacles just noted: it asserted legislative targets it did not possess itself, invented new policy tools, and drew protection for its most controversial policy from another international organization, the ECHR. Our central theoretical claim is that external pressure requires internal accommodation in order to have lasting effects. The claim has important implications for the diffusion and conditionality debates.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

  1. For recent, theoretically-oriented summaries, see Orenstein and Schmitz 2005 (comparative theories) and Mayer and Mourmouras 2008 (IR theories).

  2. Recent books that treat external influences on postcommunism without focusing on the EU include Epstein 2008; Deacon 2007; Goldsmith 2005; Gheciu 2005; Ekiert and Hanson 2003; Henderson 2003; Stone 2002; Zielonka and Pravda 2001; Jacoby 2000.

  3. Recent books that focus on EU influences in CEE include Grabbe 2006; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Pridham 2005; Vachudova 2005; Jacoby 2004; Hughes, et al. 2004; Kelley 2003; Linden 2002.

  4. The acquis communautaire contains some 80,000 pages of treaties, legislation, principles, policies, practices, and obligations of EU member states.

  5. Essentially, the EU only had the Copenhagen Criteria, technically not part of the acquis but routinely used as such by the EU (see Grabbe 2006) with which to challenge child protection policies on human rights grounds.

  6. “Borrowed acquis” may strike some as an oxymoron given that acquis usually refers to certain official EU policies. By “borrowed,” we mean simply that the EU communicated to Romanian officials their expectation that Romania would adhere to the terms of the UN CRC. The EU, in effect, outsourced the substance of conditions to another IO, using standards the UN had articulated many years previously.

  7. For a case in which the US enticed Romania to undercut EU-sanctioned policies, see Kelley 2007.

  8. The party was subsequently renamed twice, to Party of Social Democracy of Romania (PDSR) in 1993 and then to Party of Social Democracy (PSD) in 2001.

  9. In recent years its reforms have gathered momentum and some were sustained or even accelerated during Iliescu’s return to power from 2000–2004.

  10. http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/e50017.htm#CRITERIA.

  11. In fact, few policy sector failures generate—as Romania’s orphanages did—separate feature films from Hollywood and the United Kingdom.

  12. Romanian maternal mortality was 3.5 to 4 times higher than the European average rate in the period between 1970 to 1990 (Gheţau 1997).

  13. Statistics in this paragraph are from Greenwell (2003: 75–6). All told, about 30,000 Romanian children have been adopted abroad since communism’s end.

  14. Subsequent Laws 84/1994 and 65/1995 implemented the provisions contained in The Hague Convention on Child Protection intended to prevent inter-country adoption from becoming child trafficking.

  15. In 2000, the national DCP was changed to the National Agency for Child Protection (NACP) and then, in 2001, to the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption (NACPA), its current name. Somewhat confusingly, the county organs continued to go by the name DCP.

  16. At the initiative of Emma Nicholson, the European Parliament Rapporteur for Romania's accession, the EU Delegation in Romania also helped constitute a High Level Donor Group for stop-gap support for the Romanian child care system.

  17. One local DCP increased salaries for many staff to more than $1000 per month, ten times the average salary for state employees (Iordache 1999: 9).

  18. European Commission (1999b): 16. The report also criticized the lack of properly trained staff and the dependence on international assistance.

  19. Hafner-Burton (2005) shows trade regimes often spur human rights progress.

  20. For accounts of the DC’s demise, see Gallagher (2005); Vachudova (2005).

  21. Quoted from RFE/RL NEWSLINE 5(103), Part II, May 31, 2001.

  22. Yet one government minister estimated the “market” at about $200 million during the TV program, “Calea de mijloc,” TVR1 Channel, November 11, 2002.

  23. In 1990’s the vast majority of children in the Romanian system were abandoned by their parents because of poverty combined with factors like alcoholism, drug-addiction, teenage motherhood, or alienation due to rapid social change. In 1997, only 1.8% of institutionalized Romanian children had no living parents and just 13.9% had only one living parent (Lataianu 2003: 109).

  24. Foreign parents also had access to younger children. In 2000, the average age of an adopted child placed in a foreign family was 10 months versus three years in a Romanian family (USAID 2001: 7).

  25. There were also steps towards improving the care of children with special needs and handicaps. As noted elsewhere, these steps remain very incomplete.

  26. The 2006 MDRI Report, while focused on children with mental disabilities, indicates there remain horrifying conditions in some small government-run institutions.

  27. Facing demographic pressures, all three states have intervened against the ban on international adoptions (and, by extension, against EU policy).

  28. Since 2001, all top Romanian-US bilateral meetings have discussed the ban on international adoptions, which the U.S. opposes. One former prime minister noted that “Romania stopped the export of children. Americans should understand that we have a law in conformity with EU laws” and that Romania is bound by the UN CRC and Hague Convention. Cotidianul, December 1, 2005.

  29. Data in this paragraph are from Jerre (2005: 16–18).

  30. See the works in footnote three.

  31. See Jacoby (2004: chapter 2) for the case of consumer protection measures in CEE.

  32. The EU’s development of so-called “road maps” and “safeguard clauses” were also evidence of new instruments (Phinnemore 2007).

  33. It is an open question whether Romania might soon move, as other countries with weak judicial systems have done, toward a tightly regulated system of legal international adoption. We thank an anonymous reviewer for stimulating thoughts on this point.

References

  • Allegret, J., & Dulbecco, P. (2006). The institutional failures of International Monetary Fund conditionality. Review of International Organizations, 2(4), 309–327.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bainham, A. (2003). International adoption from Romania: why the moratorium should not be ended. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 15, 223–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Börzel, T. (2002). Pace-setting, foot-dragging, and fence-sitting: member state responses to Europeanization. Journal of European Public Policy, 8, 803–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Börzel, T. & Risse, T. (2000). When Europe hits home: Europeanization and domestic change. European Integration Online Papers, 4(15).

  • Calvo-Gonzales, O. (2007). Ownership and conditionality in IMF-supported programs: back to Per Jacobsson’s time. Review of International Organizations, 2(4), 329–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, M., & Felton, E. (1997). Psychological and neuroendocrinological sequelae of early social deprivation in institutionalized children in Romania. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 807, 419–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carothers, T. (2004). Critical mission: Essays on democracy promotion. Washington: Carnegie.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, B. (2007). Global social policy and governance. Los Angeles: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delegation of the European Commission in Romania (2004). Fisa de Sector: Protectia Copilului. February.

  • Delegation of the European Commission in Romania (2005a). Fisa de Sector: Protectia Copilului. February.

  • Delegation of the European Commission in Romania (2005b). Child Protection Information Sector Report. July.

  • Dickens, J. (2002). The paradox of inter-country adoption: analysing Romania’s experience as a sending country. International Journal of Social Welfare, 11, 76–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dickens, J., & Groza, V. (2004). Empowerment in difficulty: a critical appraisal of international intervention in child welfare in Romania. International Social Work, 47(4), 469–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekiert, G. & Hanson, S. (eds.). (2003). Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. New York: Cambridge.

  • Epstein, R. (2005). The paradoxes of enlargement. European Political Science, 4, 384–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, R. (2008). In pursuit of liberalism: International Institutions in Postcommunist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  • European Commission (1998). Regular Report on Romania’s Progress Towards Accession. 2005.

  • European Commission (1999a). Commission sets out an ambitious accession strategy and proposes to open accession negotiations with six more candidate countries. Press Release IP/99/751, October 13.

  • European Commission (1999b). Regular Report on Romania’s Progress Towards Accession.

  • European Commission (2005). Romania: Comprehensive Monitoring Report.

  • Gallagher, T. (2005). Modern Romania: The End of Communism, the Failure of Democratic Reform, and the Theft of a Nation. New York: NYU.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gheciu, A. (2005). NATO in the “new Europe”: The politics of international socialization after the cold war. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gheţau, V. (1997). Maternal mortality and abortion in Romania 1989–1996. Bucharest: UNFPA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glenn, J. (2004). From nation-states to member states: accession negotiations as an instrument of Europeanization. Comparative European Politics, 2, 3–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldsmith, B. (2005). Imitation in International relations: Observational learning, analogies and foreign policy in Russia and Ukraine. New York: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, L., & Ban, C. (2005). The rule of law and the European human rights regime. In M. Hoffmann, & A. Ba (Eds.), Coherence and Contestation: Contending Perspectives on Global Governance. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Group for the Analysis of the Inter-Country Adoption System (GIASAI) (2002). Reorganizing the international adoption and child protection system. Bucharest. Accessed at http://www.afaener.org/Rapport_FINAL_ang.doc.

  • Grabbe, H. (2006). The EU’s Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwell, K. (2003). The Effects of Child Welfare Reform on Levels of Child Abandonment and Deinstitutionalization in Romania, 1987–2000. Ph.D Dissertation, University of Texas.

  • Hafner-Burton, E. (2005). Trading human rights: how preferential trade agreements influence government repression. International Organization, 59, 593–629.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, S. (2003). Building democracy in contemporary Russia: Western support for grassroots organizations. Ithaca: Cornell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, J., Sasse, G., & Gordon, C. (2004). Europeanization and Regionalization in the EU’s enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe: The myth of conditionality. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iordache, L. (1999). Child protection between good intentions and lack of responsibility. Euro-Romanian Bulletin no. 5–6.

  • Jacoby, W. (2000). Imitation and politics: Redesigning modern Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby, W. (2004). The Enlargement of the EU and NATO: Ordering from the menu in Central Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby, W. (2006). Inspiration, coalition, and substitution: external influences on postcommunist transformations. World Politics, 58(4), 623–651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jerre, U. (2005). The state of knowledge about child protection in Romania. Working Paper, Lund University, Sweden accessed on 01/22/06 at: http://www.childrights.ro/downloads/Ulrika_Report_UNICEF.pdf.

  • Kaler, S., & Freeman, B. J. (1994). Analysis of environmental deprivation: cognitive and social development in Romanian orphans. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35(4), 769–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kapstein, E. (2003). The baby trade. Foreign Affairs, 82(6), 115–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, J. (2004). Ethnic Politics in Europe: The power of norms and incentives. Princeton: Princeton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, J. (2007). Who keeps international commitments and why? the International Criminal Court and bilateral non-surrender agreements. American Political Science Review, 101(3), 573–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kligman, G. (1998). The politics of duplicity: Controlling reproduction in ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley: California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambru, M., & Rosu, C. (2000). Actiunea statului in domeniul protectiei copilului in dificultate din Romania. Profil de reforma. [State intervention in the domain of children in need in Romania].. In I. Mihailescu (Ed.), Un deceniu de tranzitie. Situatia copilului in Romania [A Decade of Transition: The Situation of Child and Family in Romania]. Bucharest: UNICEF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lataianu, C. (2001). Social Policies for the Protection of Abandoned Children: Institutionalisation and Alternatives to Institutionalisation of Children in Post-Communist Romania. Bucharest: BCS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lataianu, C. (2003). Social protection of children in public care in Romania from the perspective of EU integration. International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family, 17, 99–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lataianu, G. (2004). Europeanisation as a modernising factor of Post-Communist Romania. PhD dissertation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.

  • Legro, J. (1997). Which norms matter? Revisiting the “failure” of internationalism. International Organization, 51, 31–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linden, R. (editor). (2002). Norms and Nannies: The Impact of International Organizations on the Central and East European States. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

  • Linden, R. (2004). Twin peaks: Romania and Bulgaria between the EU and the United States. Problems of Post-Communism, 51(5), 45–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maclean, K. (2003). The impact of socialization on child development. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 853–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, W., & Mourmouras, A. (2008). IMF conditionality: an approach based on the theory of special interest politics. Review of International Organizations, 3(2), 105–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) (2006). Hidden suffering: Romania’s Segregation and Abuse of Infants and Children with Disabilities. Washington: MDRI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Micklewright, J., & Stewart, K. (2001). Child Well-Being in the EU and Enlargement to the East. In K. Vleminckx (Ed.), Child Well-being, Child Poverty and Child Policy in Modern Nations: What Do We Know? (pp. 99–127). Bristol: Policy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, R. W. (2006). A true revolution. Transitions Online, January 2.

  • National Authority for the Protection of Child’s Rights (NACPR) (2006). Child Welfare in Romania: The story of a Reform Process. Bucharest: Romania, www.copii.ro.

  • O’Dwyer, C. (2006). Reforming regional governance in East Central Europe: Europeanization or domestic politics as usual? East European Politics and Societies, 20(2), 219–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orenstein, M., & Schmitz, H. (2005). The new transnationalism and comparative politics. Comparative Politics, 38(4).

  • Parker, S., & Nelson, C. (2005). The impact of early institutional rearing on the ability to discriminate facial expressions of emotion: an event-related potential study. Child Development, 76(1), 54–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pevehouse, J. (2005). Democracy from Above: Regional Organizations and Democratization. New York: Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phinnemore, D. (2007). The EU and the quest for leverage: The changing dynamics of pre-accession “assistance” in eastern enlargement. EUSA paper, May.

  • Pridham, G. (2005). Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Post-Communist Europe. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radaelli, C. (2000). Whither Europeanization? Concept stretching and substantive change. European Integration Online Papers, 4(8).

  • Roth, M. (1999). The interesection of tradition and need of change in the Romanian child protection system. Open Society Institute Working Paper available at http://e-lib.rss.cz.

  • Save the Children (1995). Report by the Federation of NGOs Active in Child protection to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Geneva: United Nations.

  • Schimmelfennig, F. & Sedelmeier U. (eds). (2005). The Europeanization of Eastern Europe: Evaluating the Conditionality Model. Ithaca: Cornell.

  • Schwellnuss, G. (2005). The Adoption of Non-Discrimination and Minority Protection Rules in Romania, Hungary, and Poland. In F. Schimmelfennig, & U. Sedelmeier (Eds.), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 51–70). Ithaca: Cornell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shafir, M. (1997). Romania’s road to normalcy. Journal of Democracy, 8(2), 144–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sissenich, B. (2005). The Transfer of EU Social Policy to Poland and Hungary. In F. Schimmelfennig, & U. Sedelmeier (Eds.), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 156–77). Ithaca: Cornell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smyke, A., Dumitrescu, A., & Zeanah, C. (2002). Attachment disturbances in young children: The continuum of caretaking casualty. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 41(8), 972–982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, R. (2002). Lending credibility: The International Monetary Fund and the post communist transition. Princeton: Princeton.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNICEF (1997). Children at Risk in Central and Eastern Europe: Perils and Promises. Regional Monitoring Report no. 4. Innocenti Centre, Florence.

  • UNICEF (2001). Closing Long-Term Residential Institutions: Best Practices. Conference Report, Bucharest, September 21–22.

  • UNICEF (2004). Assessing the progress of child care system reform in Romania. Geneva: UNICEF.

    Google Scholar 

  • USAID (1996). Future of Romania (FoR) Children Project. End of Project Evaluation Team Analysis for Cooperative Agreement No. EUR-0032-A-00-2059-00.

  • USAID (2001). Report on Intercountry Adoption in Romania. Bucharest: USAID.

    Google Scholar 

  • US Embassy in Romania (2001). Half Way Home: Romania’s Abandoned Children Ten Years After the Revolution. US Embassy Report, Bucharest, Romania.

  • Vachudova, M (2005). Europe undivided: democracy, leverage, and integration after communism. New York: Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weyland, K. (2005). The diffusion of innovations: how cognitive heuristics shaped Bolivia’s pension reform. Comparative Politics, 38(1), 21–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeanah, C., Nelson, C., Fox, N., Smyke, A., Marshall, P., Parker, S., et al. (2003). Designing research to study the effects of institutionalization on brain and behavioral development: the Bucharest early intervention project. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 885–907.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeanah, C., Smyke, A., Koga, S., & Carlson, E. (2005). Attachment in institutionalized and community children in Romania. Child Development, 76(5), 1015–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zielonka, J., & Pravda, A. (eds). (2001). Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe: International and Transnational Factors. New York: Oxford.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Cornel Ban, Gerald Hansen, III and Larry Nelson for comments on earlier drafts.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University, 745 SWKT, Provo, UT, 84604, USA

    Wade Jacoby

  2. Estrella Mountain Community College, 3000 North Dysarth Road, Avondale, AZ, 85392, USA

    Gabriel Lataianu & Camelia Manuela Lataianu

Authors
  1. Wade Jacoby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gabriel Lataianu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Camelia Manuela Lataianu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wade Jacoby.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jacoby, W., Lataianu, G. & Lataianu, C.M. Success in slow motion: The Europeanization of Romanian child protection policy. Rev Int Organ 4, 111–133 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-009-9052-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-009-9052-y

Keywords

  • European Union
  • Conditionality
  • Child protection
  • Romania
  • Enlargement
  • International organizations
  • Social policy

JEL Classification

  • F53
  • J12
  • J13