ABSTRACT

The European Union has been praised for successfully promoting democracy through its political accession conditionality by incentivizing Central and Eastern European countries to establish stable democratic institutions and improve their human rights practices. However, recent democratic downturns in the region have brought into question the quality and longevity of democracy that the Union promotes. By tracing political developments and progress towards satisfying European Union membership requirements in two countries currently engaged in accession negotiations, Montenegro and Serbia, I find that the European Union’s standards of democracy fall short of requiring stable democratic institutions and long-term successes in producing political systems that respect and protect human rights, the rights of minorities, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms. Instead of requiring prospective member states to comply with accession criteria, the European Union is allowing them to progress along the integration path with only partial compliance, weakening its own ability to induce meaningful reforms.

摘要

欧盟因其通过政治加入条件而成功地促进了民主而受到赞扬，它通过激励中欧和东欧国家建立稳定的民主机构并改善其人权做法而受到赞誉。但是，该地区最近的民主低迷使人们对联盟所倡导的民主的质量和长寿性提出了质疑。通过追踪当前正在加入加入谈判的两个国家（黑山和塞尔维亚）的政治发展和在满足欧洲联盟成员资格要求方面的进展，我发现欧洲联盟的民主标准不足以要求稳定的民主体制和建立政治体系的长期成功尊重和保护人权，少数群体的权利，法治，和基本自由。欧盟没有要求准成员国遵守加入标准，而是允许它们仅部分遵守就沿着一体化道路前进，削弱了其自身进行有意义的改革的能力。