Speaking European: Conditionality, Public Attitudes and Pro-European Party Rhetoric in the Western Balkans
FOLLOWING THE 2004 AND 2007 EASTWARD EXPANSIONS of the European Union (EU), scholars are focusing increased attention on the question of EU integration and conditionality in the Western Balkans (Vachudova 2005). A growing number of studies not only contribute to the existing body of more generalised work on conditionality, but also close critical gaps in knowledge about the EU integration process in the region. Another fruitful development in this expanding literature is its increasing tendency to treat conditionality as a cross-level issue which takes into account both international and domestic factors. While these studies break new ground by focusing more closely on how domestic and international political factors shape national leaders’ and governments’ interests, an important area which remains largely unexplored is the interlinked issues of party change and intra-party politics. Popular and academic accounts of Croatian and Serbian reactions to conditionality in the aftermath of their respective 2000 ‘revolutions’ tend to ‘black box’ parties, treating them as unitary rational actors which respond to external stimuli in a manner which maximises the parties’ chances of attaining or maintaining office (Pond 2006; Fisher 2006; Peskin 2008). Although this theoretical tool is often justified in describing the everyday working of a party under ‘normal’ conditions, it fails to address the issue of party change—specifically with regard to the transformation of EU-sceptic and anti-EU parties. Considering that
Transformation, Opposition or Defiance in the Western Balkans?
This chapter discusses the key general findings of the book and formulates the overarching arguments. Apart from revisiting the effects of the four individual variables, it examines the interaction between these factors and how their combined impact may shape party views on the EU. This chapter argues that party ideology and, under specific circumstances, party strategy were the factors that dominantly influenced the formation of their stances on the EU. It also points to the importance of the specific post-Yugoslav context—namely, the legacy of the post-Yugoslav wars, the nature of these countries’ political and party systems and their peculiar relations with the EU—that significantly affected Serbian and Croatian parties’ responses to European integration.
Genocide trials and gacaca courts
After many decades of impunity, Rwanda has embarked upon a course of transitional justice committed to prosecuting all who are suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide. The first phase, which began in 1997 and is still continuing, targets the most serious offenders. Some 10,000 have been tried under the system. Confronted with its limitations, Rwanda has devised a second approach, known as gacaca, which focuses on a lower and less heinous level of participation in genocide, and which is inspired by traditional models of local justice. Acting upon legislation adopted in 2001, a pilot phase convinced Rwandan justice officials of the viability of the process throughout the country. The institutions have been fine-tuned, and become fully operational in the course of 2005. Because the pilot phase encouraged denunciation, instead of offering `closure`, the process has actually revealed a much broader popular participation in the atrocities of 1994. Rwandan authorities now say the gacaca process will prosecute more than 1,000,000 suspects.