Integration or Disintegration?: Explaining Serbia's Reluctant Compliance with Eu Conditionality

The effect of EU conditionality has been largely applauded in the case of enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Despite limitations it largely helped the CEE countries transform from communist regimes to market economies and liberal democracies. In the case of the Western Balkans however, the application of conditionality has deviated from this ideal functioning. This work examines the case of Serbia where compliance has been particularly constrained. It focuses on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the case of Kosovo, and finds shortcomings in both the EU?s and Serbia?s approach. On the one hand, the EU has failed to produce satisfactory initiatives to encourage substantial Serbian compliance. On the other hand, compliance is stalled because certain aspects of EU conditionality conflict with the collective understanding of Serbian national identity. This two-sided analysis draws on both rationalist and constructivist arguments and gives an in-depth account of Serbian Europeanization. The work is therefore useful both to scholars of European Studies and scholars of nationalism.