Political conditionality is an important instrument of the enlargement policy of the European Union (EU). It is used in conjunction with the promise of membership to speed up the democratisation processes in would-be member states. Compliance with political conditionality, however, can pose a threat to the national identity or the government of the would-be member state. This thesis uses rationalism and constructivism to determine how EU's political conditionality posed a threat to the national identity and governments of Croatia and Serbia, while also looking into the historical evolution of political conditionality in the EU. The two nation states are comparable due to their similar historical and political background, their inclusion in the EU's regional approach towards the Western Balkans and due to facing a similar political conditionality in the form of full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia – the latter of which I analyze in detail in the empirical part of this thesis. The empirical part is comprised of two case studies, namely Croatia's and Serbia's responses to political conditionality, where I also analyzed the normalization of Serbia-Kosovo relations. The comparison of analyzed data showed, that the cases of EU's political conditionality did indeed pose different threats for both the national identity and the governments of both nation states, which led to different degrees of compliance to the conditionality.
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