The Accession of Croatia to the European Union: can a success Balkan case be exported to its neighborhood

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Hilma Raquel Rodríguez
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/13064
• topic: Balcãs Ocidentais; Croácia; Desenvolvimento Político e Socioeconómico; Política de Alargamento; União Europeia; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais:: Sociologia::Relações Internacionais

This dissertation analyzes the extent to which Croatia’s accession to the European Union may, or may not, be a modeling process for its neighboring countries. Croatia has been considered a case of success in its integration into the EU, standing out from its neighboring countries that are still very early stage of negotiations. The main purpose is to analyze in which ways can Croatia influence its peers, an unstudied topic in the extant literature. Seeking to fulfil this gap, I analyze the aspects to which Croatia differed from the rest of the Balkans. Building on primary and secondary sources between 1989 and 2020, it is expected that Croatia's accession to the EU lead to economic growth and social and political consolidation. Research design entails a case study method, even though put in its respective context and in a comparative discussion within the Western Balkans countries, with the aim to explain the causes and consequences of Croatia's accession into the European Union. Findings unpack that Croatia's accession has been a success in some areas like the long-term stability both as a democracy and market economy, a small improvement in others like perceived corruption as well as little trust from society in the judicial system and political institutions, and even stagnation in areas such as development of different economic sectors and the regional differentiation in the country. The latter is due to the situation that Croatia faces in the context of the European Union's own retraction. Therefore, despite Croatia's apparent success, this research offers some understanding for neighboring countries and can be seen as a modeling process.