ABSTRACT
Democratic consolidation is intimately linked with the effectiveness of rule of law, but, at the same time, the concepts of democracy and rule of law are not identical. This can be seen from the different historical development of the English common law tradition on the one hand, and continental European civil law traditions on the other.1 However, as Kochenov describes for the Eastern enlargement process, the structure and substance of the Copenhagen-related documents do not make any distinction between the assessment of democracy and the rule of law. In the course of the pre-accession, the Commission opted for “fusing their assessment,”2 with the effect that it gained political maneuvering space for more specific policy prescription in the process. Moreover, rule of law as a constitutional principle and institutional mechanism in legal textbook descriptions are quite different from practical requirements with regard to the conceptualization and operationalization of benchmarks for monitoring processes in the SAP, as can be seen from applied research.3
