The volume aims to examine Europeanization of Montenegro, a regional frontrunner among all Western Balkans in the EU integration process, through EU impact on domestic governmental changes by focusing on three political membership conditions of the EU: judicial reform, fight against the corruption, and development of regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations. This book is based on the argument of the EU transformative power having produced negatively reinforcing effects in key accession criteria in the candidate country within the ten years of integration period. The given deficiency of fulfilment of political conditions in Montenegro is, on the one hand, primarily the result of an inconsistent and inefficient EU conditional policy, and unfavourable domestic factors to appropriately conduct reform activities, thus resulting in generally weak and mitigating reform progress. In addition, the book has claimed that the effective adoption and alignment with the EU accession demands does not solely depend on interdependency of the EU and domestic factors (as it was explained by the Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier theory of Europeanization), but rather it also substantially depends on influence of other international factors, namely the influence of Russia and China in the Western Balkan region. The state’s possibility to choose the policies of alternatives instead of opportunities i.e. to cooperate with other international factors which do not question political legitimacy of the domestic ruling elites nor do they interfere into internal political affairs, has significantly affected reduction of euphoria for the advance in the EU accession process with the domestic political leaders. The current EU foreign policy in the form of the enlargement process more likely contains characteristics of charade in the process of European integration of Montenegro. This particular point may be witnessed not only when the case of Montenegro is taken into consideration, but also when the rest of the Balkans is, in terms of the EU enlargement policy that is, analysed.

Driven primarily by political concerns to secure democracy, Portugal's accession to the EU in 1986 also served as a catalyst for dynamic economic development following a complex process of democratization and the decolonization of Europe's last empire. This book analyses how the European Union has helped shape the political process in Portugal on key institutions, elites, and its citizen's attitudes.

This volume casts a fresh look on how the political spaces of the Western Balkan states (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania) are shaped, governed and transformed during the EU accession process. The contributors argue that EU conditionality in the Western Balkans does not work ‘effectively’ in terms of social change because rule transfer remains a ‘contested’ business, due to veto-players on the ground and strong legacies of the past. The volume examines specific policy areas, salient in the enlargement process and to a different degree incorporated in the accession criteria, as well as EU foreign policy in the spheres of post-conflict stabilisation, democratization and the rule of law promotion.

This book explores origins, manifestations, and functions of Pan-Slavism in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, arguing that despite the extinction of Pan-Slavism as an articulated Romantic-era geopolitical ideology, a number of related discourses, metaphors, and emotions have spilled over into the mainstream debates and popular imagination. Using the term Slavophilia to capture the range of representations, the volume analyses how geopolitical discourses shape the identity and policies of a community, providing a comparative analysis that covers a range of Slavic countries in order to understand how Pan-Slavism works and resonates across geographic and political contexts.

Mirroring Europe offers refreshing insight into the ways Europe is imagined, negotiated and evoked in Balkan societies in the time of their accession to the European Union. Until now, visions of Europe from the southeast of the continent have been largely overlooked. By examining political and academic discourses, cultural performances, and memory practices, this collection destabilizes supposedly clear and firm division of the continent into East and West, ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe, ‘Europe’ and ‘still-not-Europe’. The essays collected here show Europe to be a dynamic, multifaceted, contested idea built on values, images and metaphors that are widely shared across such geographic and ideological frontiers. Contributors are: Čarna Brković, Ildiko Erdei, Ana Hofman, Fabio Mattioli, Marijana Mitrović, Nermina Mujagić, Orlanda Obad, and Tanja Petrović.

This volume studies the relevance of European integration for conflict settlement and conflict resolution in divided states such as Cyprus or Serbia and Montenegro.

This comparative study harks back to the revolutionary year of 1989 and asks two critical questions about the resulting reconfiguration of Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of communism: Why did Central and East European states display such divergent outcomes of their socio-political transitions? Why did three of those states—Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia—differ so starkly in terms of the pace and extent of their integration into Europe? Rumena Filipova argues that Poland’s, Bulgaria’s, and Russia’s dominating conceptions of national identity have principally shaped these countries’ foreign policy behavior after 1989. Such an explanation of these three nations’ diverging degrees of Europeanization stands in contrast to institutionalist-rationalist, interest-based accounts of democratic transition and international integration in post-communist Europe. She thereby makes a case for the need to include ideational factors into the study of International Relations and demonstrates that identities are not easily malleable and may not be as fluid as often assumed. She proposes a theoretical “middle-ground” argument that calls for “qualified post-positivism” as an integrated perspective that combines positivist and post-positivist orientations in the study of IR.

This study examines the impact of European Union policies on Montenegro since 2007. The author examines whether recent changes were driven by the EU or by domestic factors and argues that the EU failed to pressure Montenegro to comply with their conditions during the ascension process.

Charting the path from intervention to integration Europe and the Post-Yugoslav Space examines the role of Europeanization on the development of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo may have a shared history but their experiences, views and attitudes to European integration vary dramatically. Opinion within each state is often equally as keenly divided as to the benefits of active membership. The debate within each country and their comparative differences in approach provide fascinating case studies on the importance and relevance of the EU and the effectiveness of Europeanization. A wide range of contributors with significant experience gained within the EU as well as their country of origin use their expert understanding of the language and cultures of the countries concerned to provide detailed and rich insights into the troubled history and potential of the post-Yugoslav space.

This book examines the efforts of European regional organizations in promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law among states seeking membership. In country-specific chapters, experts test prevailing theories about how effective the regional organizations' efforts at improvement have been.