The Dayton Peace Agreement was signed in 1995, which effectively ended the war in Bosnian and established a decentralized state. This divisive nature of this framework encourages the political elite and decision makers to place a greater importance upon preserving political power, rather than making meaningful institutional changes. They consistently instrumentalize interthnic fears as a means to gain popular support at the expense of the country's development. The inability to cooperate has led to political stalemate and contributed to low level of progress in many sectors. Nonetheless, the possibility of accession to NATO remains open if the criteria for membership are satisfied. The international community bears the responsibility of integrating Bosnia and Herzegovina because of its strategic importance and the potential threats that can develop if political tensions escalate into an armed conflict. The recent accession of Montenegro and North Macedonia to NATO proves the doors remains open for aspiring countries that show the political will to deepen their relationship with the Alliance. Bosnia has made remarkable transformations in its security and defense sector, though it must resolve the current issues that impeded its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

Much of the scholarship on Europeanization has explained eastern enlargement according to the logics of materialism or constructivism. Materialists argue that candidates' compliance with conditionality demands is rooted in strong external material incentives and a credible shot at membership, while constructivists point to shared identities, norms and values. These are valuable insights, yet they do not address a critical missing element - how the dispersion of ideas influences institutional outcomes in candidate states. This research demonstrates that in order for the EU to have a transformative impact on the political institutions of the states of former Yugoslavia, national political leaders must be able to communicate a satisfying narrative of EU legitimacy that resonates with national narratives of legitimacy when justifying policy choices. The project goes beyond an analysis of compliant/non-compliant behavior to unearth a greater understanding of how, at the hour of accession, elite discourse operates as an agent to reshape histories, form new identities, and mold preferences. Together these processes have profound policy implications for the new regimes, as they lead to decisions that are consequential for institutional development at both the EU and state level. In particular, using a combination of content analysis and an original elite survey, this research finds that elites' ability to express power through ideas and over ideas can transform power in ideas for the cases of Croatia and Serbia/Kosovo. For Croatia, this entails elites creating conditions whereby the public believes in the idea that EU membership represents an 'escape' from the Balkans as opposed to a 'return' to Europe. For Serbia/Kosovo, elites strive to convince citizens that EU membership signifies a 're-branding' of the Balkan image rather than an escape. The Serbia-Kosovo territorial dispute figures prominently in the picture as it pits new ideas - a re-branded 'European' Serbia - against old ideas wherein the Kosovo narrative is essential to Serbian national identity. Serbian elites work to persuade EU and national publics that these ideas are not in tension and promise to deliver on both - attain EU membership and keep Kosovo.

<p>The general aim of this paper is to describe how the European Union can affect and transfer their conditionality politics to the Western Balkan countries. A specific purpose of this study is to describe and explain what we in this paper consider to be a specific additional membership criterion, regional cooperation that has been especially designed for this region. The point of departure for this paper is Europeanization theory that will be used to study the European Union’s impact on non EU-members in Europe. The theoretical Europeanization mechanisms are taken from Heather Grabbes “Europeanization model”. A descriptive case study method together with a theory consuming method will be used. After the wars in former Yugoslavia the now independent countries started in their own pace to move closer the European Union. The problems the individual countries faced in the beginning of the 21^st century were much a consequence of the war. This lead the European Union to establish a special political and economical regional framework, where regional cooperation was emphasized. Regional cooperation developed into one of the most important elements in the EU´s relation with the countries and is made a specific requirement under the Stabilization- and association process. Implications this paper makes are that regional cooperation can be considered as a specific requirement the EU use in the Western Balkan countries membership process and that EU have a series of “influencing tools” which works to promote regional cooperation in the Western Balkans.</p><!--EndFragment-->

The general aim of this paper is to describe how the European Union can affect and transfer their conditionality politics to the Western Balkan countries. A specific purpose of this study is to describe and explain what we in this paper consider to be a specific additional membership criterion, regional cooperation that has been especially designed for this region. The point of departure for this paper is Europeanization theory that will be used to study the European Union’s impact on non EU-members in Europe. The theoretical Europeanization mechanisms are taken from Heather Grabbes “Europeanization model”. A descriptive case study method together with a theory consuming method will be used. After the wars in former Yugoslavia the now independent countries started in their own pace to move closer the European Union. The problems the individual countries faced in the beginning of the 21st century were much a consequence of the war. This lead the European Union to establish a special political and economical regional framework, where regional cooperation was emphasized. Regional cooperation developed into one of the most important elements in the EU´s relation with the countries and is made a specific requirement under the Stabilization- and association process. Implications this paper makes are that regional cooperation can be considered as a specific requirement the EU use in the Western Balkan countries membership process and that EU have a series of “influencing tools” which works to promote regional cooperation in the Western Balkans. <!--EndFragment-->

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Legal aspects of the accession of Croatia to the European Union Abstract The EU enlargement policy is a fundamental instrument of the EU's foreign and security policy that enables Union to achieve its goals such as creating a common area of peace, stability and prosperity. Since the Western Balkans has experienced an armed conflict in the recent past and since these countries are direct neighbors of the European Union, the Balkan region represents an essentially important area in the strategic plans of the EU. The European Union as well as the Western Balkans' countries strives for the full integration into the European structures. In the context of the ongoing post-war reconstruction in the region Croatia's accession into the EU represents a significant historical moment. Croatia has already passed through the whole accession process and can act as a model example for other Balkan countries. In this thesis author mainly aims to map in detail the course of the accession process in general and understand the specifics of the Croatian accession in the context of the European policy towards Western Balkans. Although the EU has set down the accession criteria and procedural rules, accession process of every candidate state is different and depends on the actual situation of the country in question. This thesis...

The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the future prospects for membership of the Western Balkan countries in the European Union. Western Balkan includes the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The main objective of the first chapter is to define the mutual relations between the European Union and the Western Balkan countries, according to their past results since the end of the Cold far until present. The second chapter explains the main features of the political and economic situation in the Western Balkans and the enlargement policy of the European Union. Emphasis was put on the Copenhagen criteria and on some of the main components of the Stabilization and Association Process, such as Stabilization and Association Agreements and EU pre-accession assistance to the Western Balkans. The last chapter deals with the future development and the possibilities for membership of the Western Balkan countries in the EU, based on the evaluation of the results which were achieved by the Western Balkan countries according to the latest European Commission progress report.

The EU is assumed to have a strong top-down transformative power over the states applying for membership. But despite intensive research on the EU membership conditionality, the transformative power of the EU in itself has been left curiously understudied. This thesis seeks to change that, and suggests a model based on relational power to analyse and understand how the transformative power is seemingly weaker in the Western Balkans than in Central and Eastern Europe. This thesis shows that the transformative power of the EU is not static but changes over time, based on the relationship between the EU and the applicant states, rather than on power resources. This relationship is affected by a number of factors derived from both the EU itself and on factors in the applicant states. As the relationship changes over time, countries and even issues, the transformative power changes with it. The EU is caught in a path dependent like pattern, defined by both previous commitments and the built up foreign policy role as a normative power, and on the nature of the decision making procedures. This path dependent pattern prevents the EU from actively using its strongest tools when trying to influence and steer the applicant states regarding reforms and norm transfer, effectively weakening the transformative power. Evidence from elections in Albania and Macedonia show how the domestic electoral stakeholders actively can resist, and even prune, important norms and laws, on best electoral practice, a key feature for the democratic structures required for EU membership. It is also apparent how there are few domestic change agent strong enough to actively promote normative changes, leaving much of the work for the EU. The clientelistic structures of these countries are a key aspect in shaping interests and actions of the political elite. The result is that layers of old and new institutions are created, producing the mixed pattern of reforms observed all over the Western Balkans. By combining the findings at both the EU level and in the applicant states, this thesis makes both important empirical and theoretical contributions, challenging some core aspects of the Europeanisation literature.

This thesis investigates the diverse ways in which social agents construct the relationship between past, present and future through a study of historical consciousness and its role in the negotiation of identity and shifting power relations in the border region of Southwest Serbia. The focus of the research falls on ethnic relations between Serbs and Bosniaks, who predominantly inhabit the area, and the boundaries that they imagine surround the world they live in. The goal has been to trace the life of these ethnic boundaries, and with it the relationships between those who imagine them by following their transformations in history, as well as to inquire into elements of social patterns that may be discernable within a contextualized and historicized analysis of the region. In order to achieve this, I have analysed the diverse pasts and futures that coalesce in the many 'time spaces' that Southwest Serbia's social actors inhabit in any present moment and from which they (re)construct these boundaries and their identities. The research has been situated within the wider anthropological discussion about the relation of culture (memory) and history and draws on insights made by relevant studies and ethnographies conducted on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The data presented demonstrates that ethnicity and nationality are not fully crystalized as concepts in Southwest Serbia, their contents are imagined in inconsistent ways in and between social groups, while ethno-national identities and histories are not on the whole felt to be crucial to one's personal sense of self, but are perceived and put to use as malleable political resources. As a result, the most dominant allegiance in Southwest Serbia is to one's family, the only group whose 'essence' escapes political malleability and whose members share a common cross-temporal vision.

This paper deals with FDI in the Western Balkan countries with an emphasis on the determinants that influence FDI inflow. First, the conditions for investing in the region are examined, and then specific variables are chosen to be analyzed in the second part of the thesis. In the empirical part of the paper, the statistical significance of institutional and macroeconomic variables on the FDI inflow is researched. The concluding chapter evaluates the relationship between the accession process and FDI volume, and potential areas for FDI placement are recommended. As overall follow up to the preceding deductions, the investment outlook is finally presented.