Democratization Through Enlargement: A Comparative Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo

Abstract

After more than 20 years of transitory journey for former-communist countries of Western Balkans, democratization still face challenges to implement or/and consolidate. Some of them share post-conflict experience and lack economic and political resources. The main challenge is faced on the enforcement of the rule of law which has a direct influence on the enhancement of the civil liberties within each country. Insofar taking into consideration the EU engagement in the region I will ask how does the Enlargement process, through political conditionality, influence the enhancing of democratization in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo? I answer the following question through this argument that, although EU strength coercive pressure through Conditionality regarding the enforcement of Rule of Law and enhance of civil liberties, democratization in post-conflict countries of SEE, stagnate. In this paper, first I analyze a background of democratization, from the EU enlargement perspective. Than on the second part I analyze the EU conditionality toward the enforcement of the rule of law and enhance of civil liberties on the two case studies. In the third part, a comparative analysis between the cases will prove the above assumption that this paper argue.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p467