The meaning of the Western Balkans concept for the EU: genuine inclusion or polite exclusion?

ABSTRACT

This article explains the meaning of the Western Balkans concept in the European Union (EU) political discourse through the prism of the constructivist approach of International Relations (IR). This term was conceived and institutionalized to designate more precisely the countries included in the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP). This article shows that the Western Balkans concept, as a political and social construct, is used strategically by the EU and leads to exclusion rather than inclusion. The countries that are or that become EU member states are no longer qualified as Balkan but as European, while those left outside the gates are categorized as Western Balkans, which are often associated with the pejorative concept of balkanization.

KEYWORDS:

• Western Balkans
• European Union
• enlargement
• Europeanization
• Balkanization

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to the professors Sophie Vanhoonacker and Thomas Conzelmann for their excellent feedbacks that helped him to significantly improve this article. This article was written during the author’s postdoctoral research at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) at the Maastricht University (UM) in the Netherlands. The article also benefited greatly from the comments of professors Bekim Baliqi and Enika Abazi. The author is also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and reviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

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Liridon Lika

Liridon Lika, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) of the Maastricht University (UM) in the Netherlands. He is also a lecturer and researcher at the Center for International Relations Studies (CEFIR) of the Department of Political Science of the University of Liège (ULiège) in Belgium. He obtained his doctorate in Political and Social Sciences at ULiège. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science: International Relations from ULiège, and an advanced master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Analysis of European integration from the Institute for European Studies (ISE) of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). His research focuses on Western Balkan states in particular Kosovo and Albania, EU’s external action, the foreign policy of the emerging powers towards the Western Balkans and the theories of the International Relations.