Tempered by the EU? Political parties and party systems before and after accession

The study of European Union (EU) conditionality has focused on how the governments of candidate states have changed domestic policies, laws and institutions in order to qualify for EU membership. However, political parties are arguably the most important and most proximate source of domestic policy change – and thus of compliance or non-compliance with EU requirements. Scholars have shown that ruling political parties rarely comply with the EU’s external requirements if the costs of compliance are too high and threaten to undermine the domestic sources of their political power. Consequently, it is important to understand how parties construct and change their agendas, especially when they are in opposition and able more easily to recalibrate their appeals.