The Long Road to Europeanization: North Macedonia’s Contentious Democratization between Its Democratic Deficit and External Involvement

Abstract

<jats:p>This article focuses on the relation between EU leverage and domestic elites related to the differential impact of conditionality in the case of the Republic of North Macedonia. The main focus is on the influence of the low credibility of the membership perspective on the effectiveness of EU political conditionality in North Macedonia. Additionally, it examines to what extent the legitimacy of the process is determined by domestic factors. The domestic political elites strategically raise the domestic costs to the level where Europeanization becomes a highly costly process and external influences such as political isolation or rewards given in the process seem to have very weak results. The article introduces the concept of the “leverage trap” – a political discourse devised by domestic political elites apropos the EU, in turn used to increase the leverage of political elites domestically and to present the EU as an impotent actor.</jats:p>