This paper investigates when and how Islamic political actors support democracy, and in particular, the EU's democratic criteria subsumed under membership conditionality. The research focuses on the main Islamic organizations in two Muslim-majority, EU applicant states, Turkey and Albania. The...

This paper investigates when and how Islamic political actors support democracy, and in particular, the EU's democratic criteria subsumed under membership conditionality. The research focuses on the main Islamic organizations in two Muslim-majority, EU applicant states, Turkey and Albania. The...

"The book investigates the scope and limitations of the transformative power of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans.The extension of EU enlargement policy to the Western Balkans has generated high expectations that enlargement will regulate democratic institution-building and foster reform,...

At the turn of more than a decade of violent and rather uncertain transitions to democracy, the EU has envisaged a new vision for the Balkans - stable, self-sufficient democracies, at peace with themselves and each other, with market economies and the rule of law, and which will be either...

For most of the 1990s the Balkans has widely dominated the Western attention as a soil of war and belated transitions compared to the relatively smooth transition experiences in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). During this period, the EU was engaged in the region through leading a series of...

The Greek crisis has raised many concerns about its potential effects on the fragile post-communist Albanian economy. This report analyzes the effects of the crisis, taking into account 1) structural issues related to the model of post-communist economic development and 2) conjectural challenges...

This paper questions why, and indeed how, Muslims have agitated for democracy during different stages of post-Communist transition. Theoretically, we merge the theoretical insights of moderation paradigm and more specific institutional, ideological and historical devices that characterize the...

The process of EU enlargement involves conditioning, assisting, monitoring and checking a candidate country’s capacity to be an EU member. Those instruments have been largely credited to impact institutional change in the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe. However, while the EU...

How and to what extent have European ideas transformed the political-administrative institutions in the candidate countries in the East? Which conditions work to mitigate and undermine the impact of the European Union (EU) in these contexts? Research on post-communist transformations, by and...