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Abstract

The Europeanization of the Western Balkans has become a major scholarly research topic of the Europeanization literature. I am thus very pleased and honored to write the foreword to this inspiring edited volume. The editors, Vladimir Vučković and Vladimir Đorđević, have managed to assemble a balanced mix of competent local academics and experienced practitioners who ask the right questions and offer concrete empirical answers. One of the guiding questions of this book is: Under which domestic conditions does the EU have transformative power? This research question shows the reader that the authors depart from over-optimistic assumptions of the first generation of Europeanization scholars who were merely assuming a positive and transformative impact of the EU on domestic politics, policies, and polities.1 By asking important questions and giving critical and novel answers to them, the edited volume is a highly welcomed addition to the evolving critical strand of Europeanization literature on the limits, failures and pathologies of Europeanization in the Western Balkans (and beyond). It exposes the various deficits of the EU (e.g., state building deficit, rule of law, promotion deficit) and the failures of EU conditionality in the region.