Description
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, justified by claims of protecting transborder ethnic communities, has disrupted the international normative framework governing transborder engagement (Pettai, 2024) and prompted initially a unified response from the European Union (Meissner & Grazziani, 2023; Fiott, 2023). These developments have driven Western Balkan states to reassess their transborder ethnic policies, given their historical and political ties with neighbouring co-ethnic populations. While scholars have examined the geopolitical and enlargement implications for the region (Džankić, Kacarska & Keil, 2023; Anghel & Džankić, 2023; Kolarski, 2022), this paper focuses instead on kin-state politics and kin-minority mobilisation in the Western Balkans.
Building on prior research identifying the EU and the OSCE as key ‘norm-setters’ shaping transborder ethnic relations (Udrea, 2017; Waterbury, 2008, 2010; Fox & Vermeersch, 2010; Lantschner, 2023), the paper re-examines the EU’s continuing capacity to inform kin-state engagement. It does so by analysing the responses of Western Balkan countries through the lens of their varying levels of integration and dependency on the EU. Extending Johnston’s (2024) framework, which categorises the impact of the EU’s kin-state normative framework on countries by proximity to the EU (members, candidates, non-candidates), this study introduces a status quo vs. revisionist distinction to explain deviations from expected kin-state policy patterns.
Empirically, the paper draws on kin-state policies and EU progress reports to uncover how domestic political agendas intersect with European conditionality. Conceptually, it advances the idea of “revisionism from within” to describe how EU member states such as Croatia and Bulgaria engage in assertive kin-state politics toward transborder ethnic communities in the Western Balkans by utilising their position within the EU to impact normative framework. In doing so, the study offers a novel framework for understanding how EU membership itself can generate new forms of normative contestation in the governance of transborder ethnic relations.
