From Balkanization to Europeanization : the stages of Western Balkans Complex Transformations

The paper focuses on the trajectories the Western Balkans went after ‘90s, moving from a Balkanizations paradigm towards an Europeanization one. Although it is acknowledged that the transformations have been sometimes running in parallel and that there is no clear-cut of when a process ends and when the other starts, I will propose -for analytical reasons- three main stages to look at the Western Balkans; that of nation- and state-building (the ‘last Balkanization’), the (delay) transition and the (pre-) Europeanization process, conceptualizing so the many transformations in the region as ‘multiple stages’. What this categorization in separate stages can be of use is to suggest which of the processes has been dominant at a certain moment and what characteristics and causalities can be attach to each of them. In the first part I investigate what I will call the ‘last Balkanization’ stage, a period that is characterized by nation and state building process with its main problems being the dissolution and disorder in the Western Balkans. Here I take a path-dependency approach arguing that the old-type of state-citizens relations are the main reason that led these countries towards disorder and dissolution. As a next stage I speak of a ‘delay transition’ that the Western Balkans experienced (at least in comparison with CEECs) this is partly because of the different modes of communism the two regions experienced and partly because of political elites’ role. Here I argue that the Western Balkan has suffered from an institutional incapacity impeding them to build a liberal democracy and be oriented toward a market economy. As the last part I will focus on the ‘pre-Europeanization’ stage that the Western Balkans has entered where institution and policy reforming (adapting to EU) is and will be the consequence of the conditionality resulting from the EU association and accession perspective of these countries.