The EU and Southeastern Europe: the Rise of Post-Liberal Governance
The EU and Southeastern Europe: the Rise of Post-Liberal Governance

Author(s): David Chandler
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, History of European Union, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development, Politics and Identity
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Summary/Abstract: This article suggests that EU governance in South-eastern Europe reproduces a discourse in which the failures and problems which have emerged, especially in relation to the pace of integration and the sustainability of peace in candidate member states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, have merely reinforced the EU’s external governance agenda. On the one hand, the limitations of reform have reinforced the EU’s projection of its power as a civilising mission into what is perceived to be a dangerous vacuum in the region. On the other hand, through the discourse of post-liberal governance, the EU seeks to avoid the direct political responsibilities associated with this power. Rather than legitimise policy-making on the basis of representative legitimacy, post-liberal frameworks of governance problematise autonomy and self-government, inverting the liberal paradigm through establishing administrative and regulative frameworks as prior to democratic choices. This process tends to distance policy-making from representative accountability weakening the legitimacy of governing institutions in Southeastern European states which have international legal sovereignty but lack genuine mechanisms for politically integrating society.

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