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The war in Ukraine has exposed a rift between Serbia and the Brussels administration. Serbia has been accused of aligning itself with Russia as opposed to the strictly pro-Ukrainian EU. While Serbian foreign policy can be argued to be primarily influenced by Belgrade's pan-Slavic relationship with Moscow, or authoritarian solidarity due to Serbia's own semi-authoritarian character, this study argues that Serbia's foreign policy reflects the current setting and the opportunities created by the major power rivalry. We reflect on the inefficiency of the EU norm and value promotion, and the rising influence of Russia and China in the Western Balkan region, which has been undermining the EU's push for democratization and Europeanization. We argue that the Serbian foreign policy aims to maintain the domestic regime's power and maximize benefits by exploiting the escalating rivalry between the two blocs rather than to pose a direct normative challenge to the established EU standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the 2013 Brussels Agreement, Serbia met the EU's expectations in order to advance its membership bid. However, the Agreement was embedded in anti-EU rhetoric on a domestic level, which included criticising EU mediation and previous actions in the EU integration process. Based on Riker's rational choice discourse analysis and by using a spatial metaphor of competition, the article attempts to explain this discrepancy. It suggests that Serbian parties deliberately used ambiguous positioning to obscure their actions. In a wider picture, Serbian domestic actors in the Europeanisation process have more complex motives than the literature has suggested so far, and they are neither pure reformers nor reform-adverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Synergies Roumanie is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Serbia (as well as other countries of the Western Balkan region) recently adopted the new General Administrative Procedure Act (GAPA). The drafting and adoption process was strongly influenced by the European Union and its experts from the SIGMA organization. The paper first analyzes the novelties introduced and improvements made under European influence. The authors then go on to analyze deficiencies of European influence in the drafting process. Two main shortcomings thereof were the false deregulation and debureaucratization of GAPA and the 'one-size-fits-all' approach applied in all the countries of the Western Balkan region, in spite of inherent differences in their legal systems. The purpose of the criticism given in the paper is to avoid the same issues in the future, during the process of harmonization of Serbian law with the acquis communautaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses whether different types of exposure to European Union (EU) modes of socialization are associated with differences in attitudes towards corruption, using Serbia as case study. Drawing on a survey of Serbian municipal health‐care officials, the article complements existing research on the impact of EU conditionality on attitudes at the national level, while also contributing to the understanding of the impact of domestic variables on Europeanization. Thus, the article's contribution to the wider literature is to interrogate the premise that in order to deliver substantive reform, attitudes and practices need to be changed via exposure to EU tutelage and processes. Our data suggest that the type of interaction that officials have with the EU and its processes matters. While those involved in EU harmonization activities were significantly more critical of clientelistic behaviour, there is no significant association between attitudes and doing daily EU‐related work or attending EU training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the question of the dynamics of relations between the political power elite, the LGBT population and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the overall context of the Europeanization of Serbia. An insight is provided into the mechanism(s) through which the political elite in Serbia reproduces its dominant position. Serbian society is depicted as a captured one, and this is illustrated by empirical findings from a survey and in-depth interviews. This is followed by a focus on the political elite's instrumentalization of the issue of sexual freedom in obtaining international support for maintenance of power through "tactical Europeanization". After this the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church vis-à-vis the state and its alleged support for LGBT issues is considered. The Church seems to have "realized" that being silent on the LGBT issue is more profitable in a symbolic, as well as, in a material sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally speaking, Europeanization is defined as “a process in which states adopt EU rules”. As Serbia is getting closer to the EU, this process is gaining on the momentum, but running far from smoothly. Formal endeavors aimed at the change of the social status of the LGBT persons in Serbia are a case in point, as they are linked to the idea of Europeanization. In accordance with the EU conditions, a number of laws aimed at fighting discrimination of LGBTs were passed, programs with the same goal were implemented, and several Pride Parades took place without major incidents (as Belgrade was “besieged” by heavy police forces). At the same time, high state officials publicly manifest their reluctance toward non-heterosexuals, with the police practicing indirect resistance toward organizing the Pride. The LGBT affirming actions were characterized by short time-span and superficiality, and this is what makes this case a paradigmatic one of the Serbian Government‟s attitude to Europeanization: the formal obligations (as imposed) are fulfilled, while simultaneously enormous (informal) efforts are undertaken in order that no changes occur in society. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the aforementioned. Attempts to diffuse EU rules and regulations seem to be of no avail if local adaptation, interpretation and appropriation of these norms and resistance which they spawn, is not taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of International Affairs (04866096) is the property of Institute of International Politics & Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since 2007, Serbia is considered to promote a model of foreign policy based on maintaining an equal distance between Brussels and Moscow. This strategy became more evident after the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, when on the one hand Serbia supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and on the other hand it abstained from voting the UN resolution which was meant to reaffirm the territorial integrity of Ukraine and did not impose sanctions on Russia. These contradictory decisions were followed by numerous other political events that required Serbia's clear-cut positioning in the Ukrainian conflict in 2015 and 2016. The paper assesses the impact of the conflict in Ukraine to be found in the main discourses around Serbia's foreign policy of 'sitting on two chairs' between its European perspective and maintaining its close ties with Russia, as viewed by elites in the period between 2014 and 2016. First, the paper explores the various meanings attached to Serbia's military neutrality in scholarly and policy debates. Next, it looks at how those meanings have been enacted in discourses and practices along the first three years of the Ukrainian crisis. The conclusions discuss the paradoxes of Serbia's positions, pointing towards the 'politics' of the neutrality policy as revealed in the discourses that surrounded the Ukrainian crisis and various East-West divides that it triggered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically assesses the role of pro-reform and pro-EU civil society in the process of Serbia's accession to the European Union (EU). Civil society (the so-called non-government or third sector) has played a fundamental role in the democratisation of former Communist countries, including in the Western Balkans where the majority of aspirant EU members still reside. Serbia's democratic transformation began soon after its regime-change occurred on 5 October 2000. This country's process of democratic consolidation is ongoing and is strongly supported by pro-EU civil society actors who are key drivers of Europeanisation. Civil society organisations and actors have increased general knowledge about the quality of democratic reforms in Serbia and brought in technical expertise which has assisted Serbian society to align better with the EU's acquis. Specific examples of civil society's activism in this article will demonstrate some unique characteristics of Serbia's third sector. Its evolution from an anti-war movement and loosely connected individuals and citizens' associations in the 1990s to becoming a major advocate of EU membership in Serbia and a partner to the Serbian Government on EU accession is worthy of further academic research and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) is a unique player in the Western Balkans where, since the 1990s, it has employed a wide array of foreign policy instruments: diplomacy, trade, financial assistance, civilian and military missions, and enlargement which is the EU's most successful foreign policy tool. Therefore, the region is an inspiring case for studying the EU's transformative power. Despite the fact that the EU has been the main driver for change, the Europeanisation of this post-conflict region has been slow, which can largely be explained by high compliance costs, strong domestic veto players, and the inconsistent use of conditionality due to the stability-democratisation dilemma. This dilemma is likely to be even more pronounced in the future. Although there is no war in the Western Balkans, the region is facing other latent security challenges such as organised crime, terrorism, and irregular migration. How should security threats be faced in the absence of strong institutions? Serbia's accession process reveals a weakness in that country's democratic, judicial, and law enforcement institutions, which can only reinforce the EU's stability-democratisation dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how ‘European civilization’ was imagined on the margins of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, and how Balkan intellectuals saw their own societies’ place in it in the context of interwar crises and World War II occupation. It traces the interwar development and wartime transformation of the intellectual debates regarding the modernization of Serbia/Yugoslavia, the role of the Balkans in the broader European culture, and the most appropriate path to becoming a member of the ‘European family of nations’. In the first half of the article, I focus on the interwar Serbian intelligentsia, and their discussions of various forms of international cultural, political and civilizational links and settings. These discussions centrally addressed the issue of Yugoslavia’s (and Serbia’s) ‘Europeanness’ and cultural identity in the context of the East–West symbolic and the state’s complex cultural-historical legacies. Such debates demonstrated how frustrating the goal of Westernization and Europeanization turned out to be for Serbian intellectuals. After exploring the conundrums and seemingly insoluble contradictions of interwar modernization/Europeanization discussions, the article then goes on to analyse the dramatic changes in such intellectual outlooks after 1941, asking how Europe and European cultural/political integration were imagined in occupied Serbia, and whether the realities of the occupation could accommodate these earlier debates. Serbia can provide an excellent case study for exploring how the brutal Nazi occupation policies affected collaborationist governments, and how the latter tried to make sense of their troubled inclusion in the racial ideology of the New European Order under the German leadership. Was Germany’s propaganda regarding European camaraderie taken seriously by any of the local actors? What did the Third Reich’s dubious internationalism mean in the east and south-east of Europe, and did it have anything to offer to the intelligentsia as well as the population at large? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates and compares the extent to which LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights norms have diffused and become empowered within Bosnia and Serbia as part of their European Union (EU) accession process across three particular arenas: institutional/legal, state authority, and civil society. It inquires as to whether EU candidate status and a “credible membership incentive” affect norm empowerment, given that Serbia is an official EU candidate state, while Bosnia is not. Building upon models of human rights norm diffusion and the most recent scholarship on LGBT rights and Europeanization, this article finds that LGBT rights have moved from a period of systematic denial and indifference to a “tactical concessions” phase of greater empowerment and visibility, while domestic challenges to these rights still persist. EU conditionality and pressure have played important roles in pushing forward new LGBT friendly legislation in both countries and indirectly increasing the visibility of LGBT organizations and rights. Serbia has gone farther due to a greater EU membership incentive and a stronger domestic LGBT civil society. Bosnia has responded less to EU pressure, and its domestic ethno-political dynamics have made LGBT rights diffusion more challenging. As post-war states still struggling with questions of identity and democracy, Bosnia and Serbia are critical cases to examine the ability of controversial new norms to diffuse in states that are seeking membership to the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the main conditions for joining the European Union (eu) are the protection of human rights, and particularly the protection of minority rights. In this way, the eu has become an important external dynamic that changes domestic policies. In this article, the limits of Europeanization are analysed at two different levels: at the legal and at the societal level. In the last years, Serbia has adopted legislative changes that have increased the protection level granted to minorities in the country. However, its implementation/internalization is considered to be one of the biggest post-conflict problems in Serbia. This article argues that Europeanization has strong limitations regarding minority's rights in Serbia. By focusing on the situation of the Roma minority in the country, we try to access the limits of Europeanization at the societal level, arguing that they are still victims of discrimination, segregation and limited participation in public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union faces multiple crises both internally and externally. The instruments through which it chooses to respond to these challenges shape the view that the partner countries have about its normative power. Even if the enlargement policy is currently a secondary priority, the interest for maintaining a stable and secure neighbourhood emphasizes the need for a coherent policy in this field and subsequently the need for a common approach of the national foreign policies and the European perspective. In this context, the Europeanisation represents a significant opportunity for development and rapprochement for the partner countries, both through EU's instruments and national ones, but one inquire which the means of influence are. In order to assess this, the paper explores the concept of Europeanisation and its impact on the minority rights policies in Eastern Europe, in particular in Romania. The interconnectedness between the bilateral dialogue and the European Union influence in Western Balkans is evaluated by discussing the impact of bilateral lobbying in the relation between Romania and Serbia regarding the field of the Europeanisation of minority rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the process of constitutional reform in Serbia in the context of European integration. Serbia has officially started the negotiations process for European Union membership, something which will require Serbia to conduct fundamental changes to its legal, economic and political system. Changes will also have to be introduced to Serbia's Constitution. These changes, ultimately, will lead to the Europeanization of Serbian constitutional law and should enable this country's smooth and transparent transition towards membership in the Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the influence of the Europeanisation process on party systems became a “hit” at international conferences in European studies and political sciences just after the “big‑bang” EU enlargement in 2004. Although in the last ten years this research has often encompassed the party systems of many Central and Eastern European countries, it still seldom includes the post‑Yugoslav states. On the other hand, although some scholars had assumed that the EU’s impact on party politics (including both political and organisational changes) in the new member states would be greater than in the old EU countries (EU‑15), in general their assumptions have not been confirmed. Of course we can find exceptions, though, and in the author's opinion one of these is the Serbian party system. In the first part of the paper the author deals with conceptualisation of the Europeanisation of political parties, examining theoretical problems above all connected with the question of how we should measure the significance of the influence of Europeanisation on domestic party politics. The second part of the article is devoted to the problem of Europeanisation of Serbian and Croatian parties as well as the party systems in both investigated countries. To examine this question, four of the five elements (leaving aside government‑party relations) of Ladrech's approach to the Europeanisation of national parties will be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that there is much confusion surrounding Serbia's landmark decision to engage in a process of normalization with Kosovo. Rather than undergoing a process of Europeanization, whereby a fundamental transformation in the underlying rationale and processes of decision-making occurred, as some have argued, the changes in Serbia's policy are in fact based on material concerns. By tracing relations in the EU-Serbia-Kosovo triangle, the article shows that change in Serbia's approach towards Kosovo is based on pragmatism and political opportunism, rather than absorption, adaptation, convergence or identity formation. What we have witnessed is a more short-term, interest based policy shift serving very specific economic purposes. In conceptual terms, this is better understood as a policy of rationally instrumental 'pre-Accession Europeanization' rather than as a process of adaptive normative Europeanization as more conventionally understood in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the progress of post-Milošević Serbia has been seriously affected by the presence of and continuous debates about the politics of alternatives. Such a trend has been closely associated with the divisions that characterize the representatives of the political elite expected to deal with and resolve crucial questions that will determine Serbia's future, and, more relevantly, will be capable of slowing down the country's progress towards membership in the European Union (EU). Aware of the negative aspects of such an approach, the Serbian leadership, elected in mid-2012, has tried to minimize the problematic presence of the politics of alternatives and pay greater attention to new rounds of political dialogue, economic agreements and societal contacts, hoping that they will be able to bring the opposing members of the country's elite closer and more ready to work towards some common goals. Accordingly, the paper examines the positions concerning cooperation with the Hague tribunal, Kosovo's status, Serbia's EU integration and the intensification of ties with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the process of visa liberalisation Serbia made significant and unexpected adjustments in its Kosovo policy, which demonstrate the European Union's leverage. Serbia's compliance on Kosovo cannot be explained either by rational institutionalism, which accounts for domestic change based on cost–benefit calculations, or sociological institutionalism, which predicts domestic adaptation based on convergence of norms and identities. Applying discursive institutionalism, this empirical study of Serbia's Europeanisation identifies discursive denial as a strategy of the Serbian elite in pursuing costly policy implementation. It contributes a novel perspective on ‘shallow’ Europeanisation by highlighting a lack of discursive reinforcement of adopted rules. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Euroscepticism prevalent in the Member states is also discovered among the candidate countries. Serbia is one of the biggest eurosceptic countries where public support for EU membership has radically dropped over the recent years. Although the process of joining the EU is not called into question by itself, the conditions of membership are not seen as legitimate among majority of citizens. In the light of these facts, the article examines factors, which explain the success of Europeanization. The article indicates that legitimacy of the EU, identification with EU's values and resonance between the normative approach of the EU and the domestic institutional design in candidate country are essential mechanisms of Europeanization. However, these conditions in Serbia are not dominant due to inconsistency of the EU's enlargement policy in Serbia. The changing nature of the EU's enlargement policy and new requirements have contributed to increasing scepticism among the Serbian public about the worthiness of the EU membership. Moreover, the EU's conditions contradict with Serbia's long-term political tradition and institutional practice. In this way, the EU faces with incompatibility of accession conditions and political culture in Serbia. For this reason conditionality is no longer a viable strategy that impacts the attitudes of Serbian society towards the EU. In order to increase the legitimacy of European integration process the EU should embrace and invest more in socialisation measures targeted at the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South-eastern enlargement currently suffers from defections, compliance problems and blockades; the results of the European Union's policy since 1999 can be called mixed at best. The “Serbian question” – for instance – remains unsolved since Serbia still means a “problem child” of the international community. The thesis generated in this paper is that all of these problems are indicators of a basic identity conflict. This conflict stems from entirely different identities, i.e. world views, perception of the state, political cultures and the meaning of international politics. The EU's enlargement policy – in its ideal type – is precisely meant to overcome this conflict by “Europeanizing” the acceding states. Yet the argument here is that the EU also pursues goals beyond Europeanization – for instance “stabilization” – hence the EU might be interested in accessions despite the fact that the Copenhagen criteria have not been fulfilled. Such “strategic accessions”, as experienced with Romania, Greece and Cyprus, tend to hinder the EU's external governance and foster enlargement fatigue in the long run. The case of Serbia serves as an example for demonstrating that Serbia is not complying with the basic standards of EU integration and that the EU is not really enforcing compliance. As a result, we are heading towards a “strategic accession” in the Serbian case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the state, but was also instrumentalised by the government to avoid an ideological conflict with the opponents of the Parade. Owing to the perception of the alliance as “elitist” and to the militarised and depoliticised nature of the state’s involvement, the event materially actualised and reified rather than transcended the enduring conflict of liberal and collectivist citizenship visions in Serbia. The article argues that the overall discourse of the government on Europeanisation is informed by the same top-down and instrumental logic. However, members of civil society develop political subjectivities which demand active citizen participation and critically engage with the discourse to restore its democratising potential. Similarly, the emerging “populist” politics of LGBT rights, illustrated by the pop singer Jelena Karleuša’s participation in the domestic debate, are better placed to face the legacies of socialist and ethnonationalist nation-building than the human rights and Europeanisation approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks at transnational dynamics in lesbian activism in the Western Balkans, with particular focus on Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, over the last two decades. Based on 30 interviews with activists from local and international feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), and queer organizations, the article discusses the role played by transnational contacts in the development of lesbian activism in the region and the related issues arising within the conflicting relationship between the 'East' and the 'West,' with special attention to trends related to international intervention and cooperation, globalization, and Europeanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, the Council of Europe and the European Commission launched their 'Regional Programme for Cultural and Natural Heritage in South East Europe'. The heritage programme distinguishes itself from other heritage programmes of the Council and the Commission in that it is presented as a means to reduce grounds for conflict. But despite this insistence on using heritage for the purpose of reconciliation and regional cooperation, over time a shift has taken place in which this ideological conception of heritage has become overshadowed by a more practical and bureaucratic one. In this article I aim to show that this shift resulted from negotiations that took place between policy formation and its implementation. I will demonstrate how, in the specific case of Serbia, during this process clashes emerged between local, national and European interests leading to the circumvention of national and local agenda's reducing possibilities for reconciliation and regional cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has Serbia’s path toward European integration been fraught with so much difficulty? This article explains Serbia’s reluctance to Europeanize by exploring why Serbian elites persistently refused to fulfill the European Union’s principal requirement—full cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal—even when it meant getting off the road to Brussels. The article offers a theoretical framework that incorporates domestic political identity, power of veto players, and competing elite strategies to explain how Serbian political actors used European Union norms and institutions to advance local political agendas. The article concludes that, instead of being a successful change agent that brought about policy shift in the areas of democratization and human rights, the European Union was used on many occasions by Serbian political elites to pursue strategies far removed from EU norms and standards. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of UNISCI Discussion Papers is the property of Unidad de Investigaciones Sobre Seguridad y Cooperacion International (UNISCI) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article the authors examine the impact of Europeanization on the political parties and party system of Serbia. Europeanization is the process by which a country restructures its political and economic systems to conform to requirements for membership in the European Union. Examined are issues contained in the process of democratization and the construction of democratic institutions in Serbia. These include the reform of the political party system, the integration of women into politics and and the political participation of minority populations.

In this article the author discusses the significant interrelationship between the process of Europeanization, that is, conformity with the norms of European Union (EU) membership, and the emergence of representative government in the former states of Yugoslavia. Under specific examination are the party political activities with regard to the EU taking place in the republics of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. The article examines domestic issues that govern political parties and EU membership preconditions.

Europeanization is assumed to influence health policy in the Western Balkans, but little is known about the actual impact of this process in these countries which constitute a complex geopolitical region of Europe. In this context, we used time trends to explore the Western Balkans health policies during the Europeanization through a cross-country comparative analysis of six countries. We conducted a health policy analysis by adapting the framework for globalization and population health coined by Huynen et al. in 2005. We analyzed 90 progress reports of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia from 2005 to 2020. In particular, we considered chapter 28 on "Consumer and health protection" and other chapters that contained the words "health" or "population health". Evidence indicates that Europeanization influences Western Balkans' policies at different levels. Western Balkan countries revise national legislation in accordance with new European Union acquis as addressed in the progress reports and build cooperation with international institutions. They build national health reforms and reorganize relevant institutions to better address regulations in accordance to Europeanization. However, it is necessary to monitor law implementation so that the current legislation is enforced and further positive impact can be measured on population health., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)