ABSTRACT
From the perspective of bargaining power of the EU and its applicant states, political conditionality is the most important source of change in candidate countries. That policy instrument presents pressure from the EU's side to the candidate state to fulfil particular international obligations. Enlargement policy of the EU towards Central, East and South-east Europe's states was in most cases described as political conditionality, and it is closely tied to democratization of post-Communist countries, having a positive political effect to the consolidation of their political systems. However, the efficiency of EU political conditionality does not necessarily depend on the implementation of this instrument, but primarily on the internal context of the state to which it relates. Contextualization is at the center of policy implementation, because implementation is always related to the specific policy as an answer to a specific problem in society. It is the political context that conditions the degree to which implementation of the EU Enlargement policy will be successful in solving particular problems. In researching the impact of contextualization on political conditionality, the most important variables are political institutions and political culture, and these depend on the nature of the previous regime, fundamental issues of “statehood,” and important international influences.
