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...

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...

During the 1990s, the Western Balkans have dominated academic attention as a region of violent conflicts and delayed transitions when compared to the smooth and peaceful transformations elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, the region's reputation as Europe's ‘trouble-making...

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 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,...

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...