Explaining the process of European Union Eastern Enlargement: interacting with multiple preferences and limited capacities?

This paper focuses on the process of Eastern enlargement rather than its outcome: how and why did the Eastern EU Enlargement happen? The outcome of the integration process is known to everybody - the EU has expanded from 15 members to 25, but the dynamics and the nature of the process itself is less clear. It is suggested in this paper that the concepts of capacities and preferences can provide useful insights when trying to answer the question posed above. In order for any enlargement round to take place it is necessary to reconcile all the existing preferences regarding enlargement. The main argument of this paper is that the preferences of the candidate countries and member states, and their conformity with the institutional and organisational capacities of the EU itself, were among the major determinants of the pace and nature of the Eastern enlargement round. I draw on two basic approaches to the analysis of international organisation - rationalist and sociological institutionalism - to explain the formation of multiple preferences and how these preferences determine the outcomes of the enlargement negotiations. In this regard, I find that rationalist approaches based on cost-benefit assumptions and bargaining theory can provide a better account of diverging member states preferences regarding "terms and conditions" of enlargement, on the one hand, and susceptibility of applicant states' preferences to the influences from the EU, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]