Between a Rock and a Hard Place – Europeanization and Domestic Actors in Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia

This work examines the state of Europeanization and interplay between EU structures and domestic parties in the potential EU member countries of the Western Balkans. Concretely, it explores domestic party scenes in Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia in recent years, which have all formally aspired to EU membership, as well as their commitment to the EU integration. Despite the formal embrace of EU integration, the pace of political reforms in the Western Balkans has been slower than hoped for, and the region has experienced resurgence of authoritarian characteristics (e.g. Bieber 2020; Cianetti, Dawson & Hanley 2018). The scholarly debates have recently been heavily focused on EU's supposed lax approach to the state of democratization in the Western Balkans, which was referred to as the stabilitocracy – the preference for maintaining stability over democracy promotion (e.g. Džankić, Keil & Kmezić 2019; Bieber 2018). Unlike these examinations of the external component of democratization and Europeanization, my work focuses on the state of domestic party scenes in the aforementioned countries. It analyzes readiness of the domestic actors – including actors in office and those who would replace them – to carry the process of Europeanization, which, I argue, leaves a lot to be desired by proponents of Europeanization, who also seek reversing of the democratic backsliding syndrome. I suggest that the countries of the Western Balkans differ from the previous cases in Central Eastern Europe, which attained Membership in 2004 and afterwards. In the former, despite the considerable length of the accession process so far, the domestic party constellations (Schimmelfennig 2005) remained either mixed or negatively disposed to pro–EU reforms. This means that the EU integration has been only partially or superficially espoused, often in a shallow manner (Goetz 2005). Serbia has recently slipped towards the hybrid regime type. There has also been an upsurge of radical rightist parties among the opposition in Serbia, which fiercely oppose Europeanization of the Western Balkans, perpetuate anti-Western narratives, and promote Russia. Additionally, the moderates in opposition have also been suspicious of the EU's role and intentions, and have opposed the normalization with Kosovo – the key prerequisite to advance EU bids for both countries. In Montenegro, the longtime former president Đukanović has promoted the country's NATO and EU membership. However, although he has broken with Serbia's authoritarian leadership with Western grace, he has also established patronage networks and demonstrated semi-authoritarian features, leading to democracy backsliding. On the other hand, Montenegro's opposition has promoted closer ties with Russia and opposed Western integrations. Kosovo has been dominated by "war time" politicians, often seen as responsible for the corruption and capture of institutions. On the other hand, the prime minister Kurti's Vetëvendosje party has had a hard line towards the Western expectations and the normalization process with Serbia. Consequently, the scholarly community should rethink the self-enforcing, path dependent understanding of the Europeanization process and the strategies to spur democratization in the resilient cases.