Navigating Change: How Narratives of Europeanization Impact the Balkans
"Rethinking the European Project in an Era of Uncertainty and Shifting Geopolitics"
In the summer of 2014, as the first signs of strain appeared in the European Union’s approach to the Balkan candidate countries, a project was born to understand these shifts. What began as an inquiry into the EU's role soon evolved into a critical examination of Europeanization itself, amidst political crises, waning enthusiasm for enlargement, and rising skepticism within member states.
The political crisis in Ukraine, anxieties about EU membership, and the UK’s Brexit referendum have all contributed to a sense of uncertainty. Even the attempted coup in Turkey and its aftermath have cast a long shadow, prompting a re-evaluation of the EU's ability to effect positive change in its member, candidate, and neighboring states. These developments challenge the very foundations of the normative framework that underpins the EU project.
This article delves into the changing narratives of Europeanization, exploring the implications for member and candidate states. It questions the assumptions that have long guided the European project and examines how domestic expectations and regional realities are reshaping the EU's state-building efforts in the Western Balkans.
Data Gaps and the Challenge of Measuring Impact
Measuring Europeanization's impact confronts a persistent obstacle: research on the Europeanization of economic policy concedes that a lack of sufficient statistical data prevents more rigorous testing of core propositions, leaving results 'rather preliminary.' Where data exist, scholars have nonetheless built quantified instruments, such as an Europeanization Index linked to the effective number of parties for the Czech Republic between 1998 and 2002. Open repositories like the World Bank's World Development Indicators provide free, internationally comparable development statistics that can support such efforts, alongside city-level demographic datasets for tracking urban change. Interpretation is complicated, however, by a lively debate in the literature over the very definition of Europeanization. Any figure describing the process is therefore only as robust as the conceptual framework behind it.
Beyond Top-Down Assumptions
Standard Europeanization research has been largely criticized for the prejudice that the main source of domestic change is the supranational level, with EU policies reverberating downward onto member states. Mainstream literature has likewise been faulted for treating Europeanization as a teleological and linear process that unfolds predictably. In response, bottom-up approaches propose to start from the domestic system of interaction and, using temporal sequences, check whether, when, and how the EU provides change in any component of that domestic system. Taken together, these critiques have pushed analysts toward more interactive, two-way frameworks for understanding influence.
From Concept to Historical Turn
Europeanization, as commonly defined, refers to the process by which a country, language, or society adopts characteristics associated with Europe, particularly through the influence of the European Union, and the concept highlights how member states tend to align more closely. Scholarship has increasingly pushed this definition backward in time, tracing the intellectual trajectory of Europeanization within broader intellectual movements and debates. This 'historical turn' complements twentieth-century historical approaches that treat Europeanization as a longer-running phenomenon rather than a post-Maastricht novelty. Together, these strands anchor contemporary discussions about the Western Balkans in a much deeper lineage.
The Shifting Sands of Europeanization
The idea that EU membership is a one-way ticket to Brussels has been increasingly challenged. The 'carrot and stick' approach has given way to infighting over policy priorities, both within the EU and with candidate countries. National politicians, facing domestic pressures, are focusing on local priorities rather than adhering to superficial commitments to democracy and the rule of law in candidate states. The UK's vote to leave the EU further underscores the challenging dynamics affecting the EU's relationships with its members and aspiring members.
- Rise of populism and identitarian movements.
- Cracks in solidarity between donor and receiver member states.
- Concerns about refugee integration.
- Questioning the fundamental values of the EU.
Re-Conceptualizing Europeanization
Recent research has moved beyond simple transmission models to re-conceptualize Europeanization, including a development-theory-based approach used to assess changes in Lithuania after the country's 2004 EU accession. In parallel, methodological work explores the means by which policy change can be measured and investigates whether the predictive capacity of 'goodness of fit' can be improved. Large empirical projects have traced the implementation of three EU directives—covering working time and equal treatment—across four Central and Eastern European countries, generating grounded findings on adaptation pressure. Collectively, this wave of research treats Europeanization less as a uniform process and more as a variable outcome requiring careful empirical and conceptual calibration.
The Case Against the Standard Model
A core criticism holds that the Europeanization approach rests on an analytical assumption of linearity and unidirectionality inherent in a top-down model limited to the reverberation of EU policies on member states. Further critique points to a lack of specificity in identifying and measuring the change produced by European integration, and in separating those effects from parallel processes such as globalization. Together these objections suggest that Europeanization outcomes can be overstated, misattributed, or read into evidence that could be explained by other forces. The burden of proof therefore falls on researchers to demonstrate that observed domestic change is genuinely EU-driven.
Comparing Domestic Change Across States
Comparative public policy research has embraced Europeanization as a lens for examining how supranational institutions reshape domestic policies and politics. Landmark comparative work, such as the detailed case study of Italy, examines Europeanization's impact across agricultural, cohesion, and employment policy within a single country. At the same time, Europeanization attracted mainstream comparative political scientists who found the field compatible with research agendas centered on domestic political change and the reshaping of nation-states in Europe. These convergent interests turned Europeanization into a standard analytical tool for cross-country comparison rather than a niche EU-studies concern.
Navigating the New Landscape
The narratives of Europeanization are evolving, reflecting the complex realities of the Western Balkans. Political entrepreneurs are tailoring their narratives to domestic expectations, creating state institutions that may resemble 'lean' or 'night watchman' states. These states, however, risk being hijacked by powerful actors, including ethnic majorities, marginalized minorities, and uncommitted human rights agents. The path forward requires a nuanced understanding of these dynamics and a commitment to inclusive, sustainable state-building that addresses the needs and concerns of all citizens.
Voices from the Region
Expert and practitioner commentary inside the region frequently tempers institutional optimism. Research on Georgia's political discourses on Europeanization drew on 25 in-depth interviews with politicians from both the parliamentary majority and minority, together with NGO representatives, independent experts, and scholars, capturing how Europeanization is narrated by elites. Analysis of Bosnia, by contrast, concludes that the Europeanization process the country has so far undergone has not amounted to a significant democratic transition, nor created social cohesion and economic well-being. Taken together, these country-level voices show that Europeanization is performed, contested, and often disappointing in practice, even where formal engagement with Europe proceeds.
From Europeanization to De-Europeanization
A prominent frontier in the literature is the possibility of 'De-Europeanization,' including the idea of Europeanization 'beyond Europe' unfolding as conflict or reversal, and debate over whether Europeanization is 'going soft' amid contested meanings. Yet the record is uneven: despite inertia in Turkey's broader alignment during a fraught period, transport policy stands out as a surprising success story of stability and continuation in the alignment process. Meanwhile, the 'Europeanization of cyberspace' marks a novel frontier combining information technology with European studies, addressing challenges such as fake news. These directions point toward a more fragmented, sectoral, and contested future for Europeanization rather than a single linear trajectory.
Two Tracks, Segmented Spheres
Beyond the state, scholars distinguish two modes of Europeanization: the traditional top-down approach and a neglected societal or transnational track in which European integration reaches into everyday domains. A telling example is football, where EU-level pressures interact with a transnational societal Europeanization that operates largely outside formal institutions. Linked work on 'segmented Europeanization' asks whether the Europeanization of public spheres still lags far behind the increasing impact of EU decision-making on citizens, echoing Gerhards' (2000) findings for Germany. The persistence of this gap is a systemic challenge, because policy alignment can outpace the formation of a shared European public debate.
Everyday Lives as a Real-World Laboratory
With the EU's borders moved eastwards, students of Europeanization have been awarded yet another real-world experiment in how integration shapes societies beyond the formal accession process. The concept has traditionally been associated with the impact of the European Union on domestic policy, coalescing political, social, and economic factors. Yet analysts increasingly stress that the phenomenon is much more encompassing and often quite elusive, reaching identity, everyday life, and social relations rather than institutions alone. This makes Europeanization's human impact uneven and difficult to capture in standard indicators.