“Balkanization Of The Europeanization Process”: How State-Building Was Affected By Axiological Matters In The Western Balkans
“Balkanization Of The Europeanization Process”: How State-Building Was Affected By Axiological Matters In The Western Balkans

Summary/Abstract: Numerous scholars have shown that we have witnessed in the past 15 years a unique political phenomenon of state-building in the Western Balkans (WB). The simultaneity of both reforms and external influence has made it extraordinarily difficult for local actors to address the interrelated and complex problems of democratic state-building. The main scope of the article is to outline a possible scheme of explanation for the way state-building (one of the core processes that has shaped the political evolution of the WB since the end of the Bosnian War) was influenced by external actors (mainly European Union) and globalization. The article argues that the EU, with its delayed change of strategy from an ‘exogenous’ towards an ‘endogenous’ pattern, provided incentives for a ‘local model of state-building’ (which the article identifies with so-called ‘Balkanization’) which directly ‘distorted’ the implementation of the Europeanization state-building pattern. The result was an intermingled strategy defined as the ‘Balkanization of the Europeanization process’. Applying the constructivist conceptual framework, this is an attempt to sketch a theoretical scheme of analysis that is worth testing within future empirical research in each country of the WB.

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