Transnational Party Cooperation (TPC) – Initiator, Engine or Keeper of Change of Party Politics? The Case of the Post-Yugoslav Countries

In the literature on the Europeanisation of political parties and party systems, transnational party cooperation (TPC) is very often treated as a special and unique kind of Europeanisation of national political parties. Atilla Ágh calls this process ‘external Europeanisation’; Danica Fink-Hafner ‘European socialisation of national party elites’ (Ágh 2006; Fink-Hafner 2007, 2008). In the case of CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) groupings, the term TPC is quite broad and besides Europarties, it includes political groups in the European Parliament, as well as sister parties from other, mainly West European states. However, researchers of the process of Europeanisation claim that the institutional environment of the EU is rather unfavourable to Europarties, but in the case of political groupings from a new member or a candidate state their role has been perceived as “stimulating and supporting” the process of the development of parties in that region; helping them to adapt to the European mainstream by giving a ‘badge of approval’ (Delsoldato 2002; Pridham 2005; Haughton and Rybář 2011). To achieve this goal transnational party actors (TPA) use various channels of influence on domestic party actors, such as special thematic joint seminars, mutual visits, trainings or political consulting (sometimes rather lobbing), throughout which they teach the elite of domestic groupings their rules and norms (Shagina 2017). Nevertheless, their mutual relations should not be over idealised, because the most important factor which shapes the relations between domestic groupings and the Europarties is the applicant party’s importance on the national political scene, rather than the matter of their political closeness (Timus 2009, 2011; Shagina 2017). The main aim of the paper is to investigate the impact that TPA have already had on political parties from selected post-Yugoslav countries, and try to determine whether this cooperation has led to changes in their programmes or internal organisation. The analysis covers political groupings from five post-Yugoslav states which already are members of the EU (Slovenia and Croatia) or have at least a status of a candidate country (i.e. Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia). To explain the impact of TPC on domestic groupings the concept of policy transfer has been applied.