1. Summary The question of whether the European Union’s (EU) political accession conditionality has changed after the 2004 enlargement round has become – especially in light of potential future enlargements – increasingly relevant. In his study Frank Schimmelfennig deals with this issue. Looking at episodes of postponed accession negotiations with Croatia or frozen association agreements with Serbia the heightened relevance of the question becomes clear. To find out more about these events’ causes the author examines two aspects. Firstly, whether non-member states qualified for association or accession have been discriminated against by the EU’s enlargement policy and secondly, if domestic issues are reasons for stagnation in accession or association processes. The results provide two implications: Firstly, they show “that EU enlargement policy has remained consistently linked to compliance with basic democratic norms” (Schimmelfennig 2008, p. 919) and that there has not been any discrimination. Secondly, after looking at the cases of Croatia, Serbia and Turkey, the results highlight, that “the legacy of ethnic conflict” (ibid, p. 919) in these non-member states stands in the way of conditionality (cf. ibid, p. 918f.) and thus explain the recent staggering negotiations. 2. Critique Schimmelfennig’s article contains – next to a sound theoretical basis – a contested concept specification as well as a selection bias. All three issues will be discussed below. Firstly, before turning to the two shortcomings, it needs to be emphasized that the expectations regarding political conditionality are well derived and underpinned. In short “the success of political conditionality depends on (i) the conditional offer of EU membership (…);... ... middle of paper ... ...udy’s well-explained and underpinned theoretical framework is diminished by the questionable concept specification regarding the Freedom House score and the selection bias. Thus the article’s general relevance for the area of research is lessened, but at the same time improving the study’s shortcomings points towards venues for future research. A large-N study that looks at the compliance costs domestically could shed more light on the topic and improve the ability to generalize about the EU’s accession conditionality after the 2004 enlargement. Works Cited Schimmelfennig, Frank (2008): EU political accession conditionality after the 2004 enlargement: consistency and effectiveness. In: Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 15:6. p. 918-937. Commission of the European Communities (2009): The Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia 2009 Progress Report. Brussels.
In 1992 (and with resolutions created earlier) Kosovo's Albanian majority also voted to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia, hoping to unite with Albania. The conflict in Kosovo could be seen as t...
The organization of the argument of this paper is not particularly imaginative since this writer “lists” elements in a strictly sequential order, but he or she demonstrates familiarity with a wide range of documents and concepts of the Reader while working closely with the specific language of the document he or she is presenting.
(3) Adam, Elga (2007) “Reflection and Disagreement” Princeton University Copyright the Authors Journal compilation, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. Pg. 478 – 502.
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In 1998, the autonomous region of Kosovo inside Serbia was being torn apart. The entire Kosovo War had many key actors. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (consisted of Serbia and Montenegro) wanted to claim the region as theirs but not without the opposition of the Croats (Croatia). The two main bellig...
A Democratic Deficit in the EU The question over the legitimacy of the EU has been a nearly continuous debate and many commentators appear to agree that the EU suffers from a severe ‘democratic deficit’. There are many reasons why this perception is so widespread. As a multinational body it lacks the grounding in common history and culture upon which most individual polities can draw.
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Finally, in the fifth claim about policy drift Moravcsik highlights that the decision in the EU is to centrist and both left wing parties and right wing parties are skeptics about EU policies. This happens because of “there are high threshold for the adoption of EU policies: unanimity in the Council, or a majority in the Commission plus a qualified majority in the Council plus an absolute majority in the European Parliament and then judicial review by national courts and the European Court of Justice” (Hix & Follesdal 2006:540).
In order to be a member of the European Union, an applying nation must first meet the requirements of membership as described in the Copenhagen Criteria. There are geographic, democratic and economic criteria. Geographically, the applying nation must be classified as a European nation, as exemplified by Morocco’s rejection. The applying nation must also have a secure and functional democratic government that only acts in accordance with the law. This means that any citizen should be able participate in the political system and that there are free elections with a secret ballot. The government must also respect human rights and have protection policies for minorities, meaning that a persons’ inalienable rights are protected by law and minority groups can retain their culture and language without discrimination. Economically, a country must have a functional market economy on which it can feasibly support itself and other member nations if need be. The country’s economy needs to be able to compete on a global scale and deal with economic pressures. There are also separate guidelines for countries wanting to convert to the Euro. Finally, countries that want to join must agree to uphold laws and regulations t...
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