Democracy, Reform and EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans: Can We Hope for “Sanaderization”? (Research Brief)

While variation among the candidates for European Union (EU) membership in the Western Balkans is great, the main roadblock to progress is the same: entrenched elites for whom high quality institutional and economic reforms are costly. Croatia charts a relatively hopeful course. From his jail cell, former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader symbolizes the possibility that leaders of authoritarian parties will moderate party agendas and then overhaul state institutions in response to domestic and external pressure for reform. Can EU leverage on the other Western Balkan states help foster domestic pressure for reform and displace rent-seeking political elites that are benefiting from the status quo?

Milada Anna Vachudova, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was a 2011-2012 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow.