An analysis of EU's enlargement policy towards Western Balkan countries.

Different ways of conceptualizing and assessing the European Union's (EU) actorness have been at the centre of discussions on EU foreign policy. This paper, instead of offering a new conception of EU's actorness, aims to offer a new way of analyzing its effectiveness as a foreign policy actor by focusing on enlargement policy, which is considered to be a part of EU's foreign policy. It will be argued that the EU is a foreign policy actor/subject but the effectiveness of its policies depends mainly on the stability of the discourse it employs in the international arena. In line with this, the paper offers a three dimensional framework for analyzing and assessing the effectiveness of EU enlargement policy. The effectiveness of the policy is assessed on the basis of how the EU defines itself as an actor and formulates a specific policy path in line with this, how it performs this policy, and how it is received by potential member states and candidate countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]