The Western Balkans have seen rapid changes since the end of the violent conflicts in the 1990s. The European Union (EU) has been one of the main drivers for change, focusing on the political, economic and social transformation of the region to prepare the countries for membership in the Union. This introduction to the special issue will clarify the key terms and their interaction in the Western Balkans. EU enlargement has never before been this complex and inter-connected with processes of state-building and democratization. The focus on conditionality as the main tool of the EU in the region has had positive and negative effects. It can be argued that the EU is actively involved in state-building processes and therefore the term EU Member State Building will be used to explain the engagement of the Union with the countries in the region. This paper will discuss the concept of EU Member State Building, its potential and its pitfalls. It will be demonstrated that the stabilization of the region is unlikely to take place without an active role for the EU; however, the current approach has reached its limits and it is time to think about alternative options to integrate the Western Balkans into European structures.

The post-conflict space in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been marked by a multiplicity of statebuilding projects: in addition to the much-analyzed internationally-led statebuilding process, parallel Bosniak, Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat statebuilding trajectories exist. They seek to undermine and challenge the international statebuilding venture by appropriating and adapting the liberal statebuilding processes. This is carried out through the institutions and processes of governance put in place by international statebuilders to subvert the statebuilding trajectory. Focusing on the local appropriation of processes and institutions of governance, the paper maps out the repertoires of contention entailing boycotts, walk-outs, protests and refusals to co-operate in an attempt to explain and understand how local contention vis-à-vis the international statebuilding trajectory is carried out.

This article explores the debate on local ownership in Bosnia and Herzegovina by examining the limits of international community support for reform in a divided political environment in which decision-makers and politicians have little to no interest in reform themselves. After a short review of the key issues and arguments regarding ownership in BiH, the example of education reform is presented to demonstrate the role of the OSCE as an external actor in this reform sector, and the lack of any reform progress in this field in the absence of external pressure. The article closes with reflections on whether or not external organizations can make any systemic-level impact in such a hostile reform environment, and whether the OSCE can still play a constructive role in Bosnia.

This paper examines the interplay between internal and external actors in the process of democratization and state-building in Albania and Kosovo. It does so by using David J. Smith's “quadratic nexus” that links Brubaker's “triadic nexus” – nationalizing states, national minorities and external national homelands – to the institutions of an ascendant and expansive “Euro-Atlantic space”. The main argument of this paper is twofold. First, it argues the nexus remains a useful framework in the study of state-and nation-building provided that it moves beyond the “civic vs. ethnic” dichotomy. Today, many states with a mixture of civic and multi-ethnic elements involve this relational nexus. Second, while comparing Albania and Kosovo, this paper argues that all the four elements of the nexus have a different impact on the process of state- and nation-building and their relationship is more conflictual in Kosovo than in Albania.

The two decades of Montenegro's transition that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia were marked by the transformation of the ambitions of the ruling political elites, which pushed the republic that once sought to be a member in a federal state towards independence. The shift in the agendas of the political elites also changed the meaning of the notions of “Montenegrin” and “Serb”. Hence, this paper looks at the cleavages that emerged during Montenegro's divide over statehood and identity. It asserts that elite competition in unconsolidated states prompts the emergence of ethno-cultural cleavages, which are necessary for establishing the identities of political elites and of their followers. The study first identifies the critical junctures for the emergence of functional and structural cleavages in Montenegro and associates these cleavages with the changing political context. It proceeds with an analysis of ethno-cultural cleavages, arguing that these emerged from the politicization of historical narratives. The study concludes by arguing that different types of cleavages supported the division over statehood and identity, and that as a result of the changes in identity in Montenegro, the political reinforcement of overlapping cleavages was essential in order to cement the ethno-cultural identities of the two camps.

Good governance has been used as a development tool by international organizations and the European Union (hereinafter: EU) which has included it in cooperation agreements and promotes it within its Enlargement Policy. This paper analyzes the good governance approach in the EU's relations with Macedonia and its effects on the country's democratic policy making. The analysis shows that the Europeanization of Macedonia has an impact on the democratic processes in the country with sub-optimal results as its technocratic approach in assessing the country's readiness for EU membership has proved to be detrimental for the deliberative democratic processes. The intensive pressure for effectiveness and efficiency results in finding short cuts in rule transfer through copying and pasting legislation from member states and limiting the democratic policy making to political deliberation rather than to wide policy consultations between state and non-state actors.

The South-eastern enlargement currently suffers from defections, compliance problems and blockades; the results of the European Union's policy since 1999 can be called mixed at best. The “Serbian question” – for instance – remains unsolved since Serbia still means a “problem child” of the international community. The thesis generated in this paper is that all of these problems are indicators of a basic identity conflict. This conflict stems from entirely different identities, i.e. world views, perception of the state, political cultures and the meaning of international politics. The EU's enlargement policy – in its ideal type – is precisely meant to overcome this conflict by “Europeanizing” the acceding states. Yet the argument here is that the EU also pursues goals beyond Europeanization – for instance “stabilization” – hence the EU might be interested in accessions despite the fact that the Copenhagen criteria have not been fulfilled. Such “strategic accessions”, as experienced with Romania, Greece and Cyprus, tend to hinder the EU's external governance and foster enlargement fatigue in the long run. The case of Serbia serves as an example for demonstrating that Serbia is not complying with the basic standards of EU integration and that the EU is not really enforcing compliance. As a result, we are heading towards a “strategic accession” in the Serbian case.

More than 20 years after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia European efforts to create sustainable States in the Western Balkans, as discussed in the papers of this Special Issue, have brought about some progress, but a lot of work remains. This conclusion will draw on some of the themes developed in the previous papers and contrast to what extent EU Member State-Building provides a new framework for enlargement and what the key questions of sustainable expansion of the EU and functional statebuilding through conditionality will be. It concludes that the EU's current engagement with the Western Balkans faces many problems and obstacles and therefore some reconsideration might be necessary.