Abstract
Despite a protracted process of association of Western Balkan states with the European Union (EU), rule of law and the overall state of democracy in the region has regressed over the past ten years. With the prospect of membership moved to the distant future, enlargement and the EU have suffered a profound loss of credibility and legitimacy. In the frame of the EU3D project, this study first seeks to conceptualise EU conditionality in the Western Balkans through the prism of dominance theory. It argues that reinforced EU conditionality that extends to highly sensitive statehood-related issues and national conflicts, combined with a highly uncertain membership perspective, have engendered a situation (and perceptions) of domination in the Western Balkans that erodes EU legitimacy. The second part of this paper explores the role of civil society in the EU accession process by focusing on the case of Serbia, where dominance is more pronounced and civil society strong. The EU significantly increased opportunities for the participation of civil society in conditionality-related reforms and the accession process, as a deliberate strategy to counter dominance and enhance its contested legitimacy in the region. The paper argues that the opening up of enlargement to civil society actors contributed to increased input legitimacy of the EU. Yet, it fell short of promoting and supporting their substantive empowerment as Serbia’s political system became increasingly centralised and democratic reforms faltered. The EU’s legitimacy suffered, even among its strongest supporters, above all because it prioritised stability over consistent support for rule of law norms and democratic practices in the country.
Keywords
Civil society, Dominance, EU accession, EU conditionality, Legitimacy, Western Balkans
