Review Assignment: The Approach Employed in the Article (Essay Sample)

Article Review
Name
Institution
Article Review
This paper seeks to critically review some of the element of the article “Beyond conditionality: International Institutions in Post-Communist Europe after enlargement.” (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008).
The Author’s Main Argument
The author's main argument revolves around the fact that most of the international institutions in the world utilize ultimatums to influence the various states to conform to or promote a certain policy consideration (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). Most often these ultimatums or conditions are usually associated with the various pertinent things that a state requires. The international organizations, therefore, use this loophole to portray their capability to assist a state but will require another thing in return.
The Approach Employed in the Article
In order investigate the underlying problem in this article; the author employed a qualitative research method. This method involved making a hypothesis and tailoring his research towards validating the hypothesis that he formed about the problem. The hypothesis formed was referred to as the conditionality hypothesis (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). This hypothesis provided that in order to highlight the decrease in the influence of international institutions, a person needed to look at the new member states, the post-communist countries which border the European Union and finally the candidate countries such as Balkans and Turkey (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008).
The Quality of Supporting Evidence
There are pertinent areas that support the hypothesis that was formulated. The first are is the acquis communautaire (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). This highlights the manner with which the international institutions within the European Union sanction member states in the event of non-compliance with various policy considerations. This area clearly depicts the manner with which International organizations places sanctions in order to ensure that the conditions they had set are adhered to.
The next area relates to the perpetuity of conditionality (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). It was noted that accession of a member state does not guarantee the end of conditionality. The international organizations continued arm-twisting the various states by rewarding them with incentives. This clearly highlights the hypothesis that was put across. The next area that supports the hypothesis is the political conditioning (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). The international organizations could subject a state to various sanctions in the event that there was a material breach of some of the fundamental human and democratic rights. The final area that supports the hypothesis involves rules that are not subject to European Union conditionality (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). The article notes that failure to provide for conditionality often leads to non-compliance of states with as much as incentives have been provided. This, therefore, reiterates the fact that conditionality is an important facet in encouraging compliance.
The Quality of Supporting Evidence
From the study, it was noted that the compliance cost of the new entrants to the European Union such as Serbia, Turkey, and Croatia had escalated when compared to previous years (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). It was fu...