Obstructing in the name of the people : populism, euroscepticism, and European Union accession in South-Eastern Europe

Abstract

Euroscepticism takes many forms, from disagreements on policy to disputes over abstract concepts such as 'sovereignty' and culture. Throughout the process of European Union (EU) accession, all these arguments are mobilized to attempt to stall the process. Each case has a different combination of said arguments which are employed by Eurosceptic individuals creating an iterative conflict between Eurosceptic and pro-EU actors which shifts and evolves throughout the accession process. This chapter seeks to delineate how this conflict affects the accession process by examining the cases of Croatia and Serbia. In particular, it addresses the question of under what conditions did/does the confluence of populism and Euroscepticism impact their accession processes? To accomplish this, this chapter first identifies successful conditions for Europeanization, defined here as the process of accession, derived from the literature on policy learning. Then, social network analysis is used to identify the structure of relations within the parliaments of Croatia and Serbia during their accession processes which is paired with interviews with politicians. These are then used to identify under what conditions the actions, beliefs, and behaviour of populist and Eurosceptic politicians were able to impact accession by interrupting the diffusion of information, norms, and beliefs to relevant policymakers throughout the process.