The Limits of EU Influence: The Revisited External Incentives Model in Montenegro and North Macedonia

This study aims to test the influence of credibility of European Union (EU) accession and domestic political costs on the degree of compliance with EU conditionality in Western Balkan (WB) states. It does so by applying the revisited External Incentives Model (EIM) by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2020). The model assumes that credibility and adoption costs are central determinants for WB states to comply with conditionality. For the research, a case study was done into the compliance with chapter 15 and chapter 23 of the EU acquis. To do so, progress reports from the European Commission were systematically researched to distinguish trends in compliance and compare them to levels of credibility and political costs. The findings show no convincing co-variance between credibility and compliance in Montenegro and North Macedonia. The same goes for political costs and compliance. The explanatory value of the revisited EIM is therefore not upheld in this study.