Europeanization Theories Revisited through Historical Institutionalism. EU as a Public Policy Role Model for Post-Communist South-Eastern Europe in the Field of Security
Europeanization Theories Revisited through Historical Institutionalism. EU as a Public Policy Role Model for Post-Communist South-Eastern Europe in the Field of Security

Summary/Abstract: From the perspective of studies on the public policies dynamics in the European integration context, the analysis of Europeanization postulates the transfer of practices among the supranational, national, regional and local levels. This transfer supports two meanings: (1) the conceptualization of Europeanization as an explanation for the changes occurring at supranational, national, regional and local levels opting for a top-down approach of this phenomenon, with some authors even placing the concept at the level of supranational institutions created to promote integration; (2) the approach of Europeanization from governance theories perspectives, some authors even adopting an institutionalist and functionalist perspective arguing that Europeanization could be diffused beyond supranational institutions, in a top-down, bottom-up manner and even horizontally, including other security regimes, institutions and processes in the conceptualization of the term. Thus, the research built on Europeanization theories is meant as a study on the process of formally establishing security capacities for countries in a certain regional area. Undergone innovatively, the study offers a new working hypothesis for validation which renders historical conditionalities and Europeanization process of local institutions, state structure and local identities as independent variables for the analytical process on the evolution of security policies placed in the wider context of European integration. The research is thus configured to correlate the national and European formally set security framework and the Europeanization of national and local formal structures.

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