International socialization in Europe

At the end of the Cold War, the Western international community embarked on a large-scale project of promoting democratic change and consolidation in Eastern Europe. Fifteen years later, the results are mixed. Whereas some countries have become consolidated democracies and members of the EU and NATO, democratization is still unstable in the Balkans. In most of the former Soviet Union, autocracy rather than democracy was consolidated. This book explains the uneven international socialization in Europe. It examines the strategies of the EU, NATO, and other European organizations and the conditions under which they have been able to generate compliance with international norms of democracy, human rights, minority protection, and state-building. Detailed comparative case studies of Belarus, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Slovakia, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus, and Montenegro demonstrate the relevance of credible EU (and NATO) membership conditionality and domestic power costs of the target governments.