Adapting to Contestation: The New Dynamics of the EU_Western Balkans Relationship

The global strategy of the European Union (2016) locates the EU in an ever more connected, contested, and complex world, characterized by a shift from a unipolar structure to a “more fragmented distribution of power”, leading to “growing uncertainty and rivalry”. Particularly in the Western Balkans we can discern an increasing competition for influence and thus a contestation of European offers, as players like Russia, China or Turkey enter the arena. This begs important questions: first, how are the countries of the region adapting their strategies in this contestation, as their range of prospective cooperation partners increases and new alternatives for action emerge? How does this affect their approach towards European integration? Is this necessarily a constraining factor in their path towards EU membership or might the EU become the reliable partner in this competitive field? This project tackles these questions by drawing on qualitative comparative case studies. Close cooperation during the exchange stays and the workshop aims at developing refined and new methodological approaches to study not only accession procedures from a comparative perspective, but also to tackle the issues of contestation and geopolitical competition and their effects on actors’ strategies. The idea is to develop a common set of factors for mapping variants of contestation and to guarantee for a better comparability of cases across various scenarios.