Abstract
The thesis examines the adequacy of the EU conditionality to induce state-building reforms in the particular context of Bosnia. The purpose is to analyze whether the conditions set, and the incentives offered by the EU are adequate to induce state-building reforms. The EU conditionality has been largely successful in inducing domestic changes in Central and Eastern European Countries in the previous pre-accession process. The task faced by the EU conditionality in Bosnia has however been fundamentally different from the previous pre-accession experience. In fact, the inclusion of Bosnia in the EU's Stabilization and Association Process, the framework for the Western Balkans accession to the EU, has overlapped with the country's state-building process. The unprecedented challenge of the EU conditionality has been to provide the political elite of an ethnically divided country, with sufficient leverage to induce the reforms necessary to build a viable state. Highlighting Bosnia's difficult adoption of EU conditions within the Stabilization and Association Process, and its reliance on the influence of the High Representative, it appears that the influence of EU conditionality has been weaker than expected in inducing statebuilding reforms. The central argument of the thesis is that, this is due to the problematic relationship between the EU conditionality and the country's specificity.
