This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to "empty shells." In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.

This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to empty shells. In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.

The book investigates the scope and limitations of the transformative power of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. The extension of EU enlargement policy to the region has generated high expectations that enlargement will regulate democratic institution-building and foster reform, much as it did in Central and Eastern Europe. However, there is very little research on whether and how unfavourable domestic conditions might mitigate the transformative power of the EU. This volume investigates the role of domestic factors, identifying ‘stateness’ as the missing link between the assumed transformative power of the EU and the actual capacity to adopt EU rules across the region. Including chapters on Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, leading scholars in the field offer up-to-date comparative analysis of key areas of institutional and policy reform; including state bureaucracy, rule of law, electoral management, environmental governance, cooperation with the International Court of Justice, economic liberalization and foreign policy. Looking to the future and the implications for policy change, European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans provides a new theoretical and empirical focus on this little understood area. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of EU politics, comparative democratisation, post-communist transitions and Balkan area studies.

Today, more than fifteen years after the end of the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia's dissolution, the "Balkan question" remains more than ever a "European question". In the eyes of many Europeans in the 1990s, Bosnia was the symbol of a collective failure, while Kosovo later became a catalyst for an emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the last decade, however, the overall thrust of the EU's Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated by security issues related to the war and its legacies to one focused on the perspective of the Western Balkan states' accession to the European Union. This Chaillot Paper, which features contributions from authors from various parts of the region, examines the current state of play in the countries of the Western Balkans with regard to EU accession. It brings together both views from the Balkans states themselves and overarching thematic perspectives. For the first time the European Union has become involved in the formation of new nation-states that also aspire to become members of the Union. The EU's transformative power has proved effective in integrating established states; now it is confronted with the challenge of integrating new and sometimes contested states. Against this background, this paper makes the case for a concerted regional approach to EU enlargement, and a renewed and sustained commitment to the European integration of the Western Balkans.

This Brief provides a survey of key political, social, and economic issues affecting the Western Balkans region. Taking a two-pronged conceptual approach focusing on fragmentation and integration, the volume highlights commonalities and differences in a number of simultaneous dynamics currently characterizing the region: Europeanization and EU access, market integration, and migration and socio-demographic transformations. Stressing the interconnectedness of these issues, the volume synthesizes key questions for the future of the region, such as the relationship between socio-demographic trends and economic development, the effects of depopulation on further EU integration, and the economic and political repercussions of enhanced intra-regional trade. Explicitly interdisciplinary, this Brief will be useful for researchers and students specializing in the Balkans and Western Balkans, post-socialist countries, European affairs, enlargement, foreign policy, international relations, regional studies, economics, economic transition, and socio-demographics.

The Western Balkans region has come a long way over the last two decades in achieving economic and social progress. With a population of 17.6 million, the region today boasts a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of close to EUR 100 billion, an average GDP per capita of about EUR 5 400 and a comprehensive process of integration with the European Union.

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of some of the most critical issues regarding the EU’s Energy Union policy. Applied European energy policies face a number of challenges ranging from the geopolitics of energy and energy regulation, to climate change, advancing renewable and gas technologies, and consumer empowerment structures. This book takes a multi-dimensional look into some of these vital issues regarding the European energy sector with a special focus on the effects the Energy Union policy has in two sensitive regional systems, Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Energy, being by definition a multi-disciplinary field, presents a challenge for readers of any specific disciplinary background that need to grasp an overall understanding of the various aspects of this exciting sector. This book’s objective is to offer the opportunity for readers to get a quality, hands-on overview of the Energy Union by the professionals and academics that interact with it on a daily basis.

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.

The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.

This book examines the identities of young adults in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. With research drawn from a large multidisciplinary project exploring a potential for reconciliation in post-conflict societies, the authors discuss the interplay between ethnic, religious and national identities that have been the source of recent violent conflicts. They focus on people aged 18-30, representing generations that are socialized after the wars, but live in ethnically divided societies burdened with a difficult history. Another aim of the project was to compare majority and minority perspectives within each country, and to provide a unique view on how to reinterpret and build more inclusive social identities. Scholars and organizations interested in areas of social psychology, political science and sociology will find this research of great value.