6 - The New and the Hopeful

Summary

In Chapter 6, our examination of the Europeanization approach to improving governance is broadened to the EU’s Big Bang enlargement, taking in the Balkans and Turkey. In the East and South, the process of Europeanization came up against unfinished transformations from communism, nationalism, and state-building after civil wars. Although the power of Europe over Romania and Bulgaria, on one hand, and Kosovo and Bosnia, on the other, was greater than anywhere else in the world, there is no clear success story to show there, notwithstanding the EU’s occasional influence in Croatia or Romania. On the contrary, insidious state capture and the absence or weakness of rule of law caused such countries as Turkey and Hungary to backslide precisely during their “Europeanization” years.