NEO-LIBERAL RESTRUCTURING AND THE EU INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS
NEO-LIBERAL RESTRUCTURING AND THE EU INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS

Summary/Abstract: The main rhetoric of the European Union for the Western Balkans developed around the idea that if the Western Balkans implement the reforms recommended by the EU, they will develop economically, build a healthy democracy based on a functional rule of law system. In case of the failure of the reforms to achieve these objectives, which indeed is often the case, the answer is founded in the (liberal) modernization theory which argues that the reasons for the failure must be found on the domestic problems and the wrong implementation of the reforms whose beneficiary properties are taken for granted. This paper argues that despite the fact that the Western Balkans faces many domestic socioeconomic problems, structural causes and mechanisms/processes, which emerge from the operation of global economic system rest at the center of this failure. Based on the insights of the neo-Gramscian perspective, it analyzes the EU integration strategies towards the Western Balkans as part of the neo-liberal restructuring project. The complex and dynamic relations based on consent and coercion during this process and the role of the European Commission as the main instrument of this strategy will constitute the focus of this paper.

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