Europeanization and Informal Networks in Southeastern Europe

Using a combination of methodologies, including Social Network Analysis and interviews with relevant stakeholders, to capture the impact of informal political networks in three successor states of former Yugoslavia - Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia - Alexander Mesarovich presents invaluable fresh evidence for understanding the reasons for their very different integration paths towards the European Union. By shedding light on an insufficiently studied aspect of political processes - informal channels of influence - the book will be indispensable reading for all scholars interested in the Western Balkans.

- Milica Uvalic, European University Institute, Florence

The book offers an innovative perspective on the role of formal and informal mechanisms in conditionality and learning in the process of EU accession. It makes an important conceptual, methodological, and empirical contribution to scholarship on post-communist transition and EU accession. A much welcomed, needed, and highly recommendable book.

- Gezim Krasniqi, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Admirably written, this book explores the recent political history of Southeastern Europe as a laboratory of Europeanization: why have some countries in the region joined the EU, whilst others have drifted away from accession? Alexander Mesarovich answers this question by taking us into the subtle web of informal networks within the Parliaments of Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. His exploration and findings are key to our understanding of how the politics of EU accession works through social relations.

- Claudio M. Radaelli, European University Institute, Florence

How do informal networks of politicians facilitate or impede political processes? Using Social Network Analysis of and interviews with Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian parliamentarians involved in the EU accession process of their respective countries, Mesarovich gives a convincing answer. The accession process has been successful in the cases of Slovenia and Croatia, but not in that of Serbia, because of the lingering Kosovo problem. But, as he claims, more importantly, Europeanization as Policy Learning did not offer Serb parliamentarians adequate informal rewards to make them prefer the prospective welfare of their country inside the EU over the preservation of their own personal position outside the EU.

- Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Politics would not work if informal institutions did not exist. Europeanization and Informal Networks in Southeastern Europe rigorously and convincingly unpacks the role of informality in politics, a phenomenon so stealthy few other researchers dare tackle. Alexander Mesarovich shows us how to do it.

- Veronica Anghel, Johns Hopkins SAIS, Bologna