ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) membership perspective has not motivated Western Balkan countries to fully adopt the liberal values and ideas constituting the EU normative community. Regional leaders have been acting for some time as creative resisters to the political conditions for EU accession. This chapter investigates the extent to which norm contestation in the Western Balkans has been the outcome of authoritarian norm diffusion by external illiberal actors such as Russia, China, and Türkiye. It argues that the contestatory practices of Russia, China, and Türkiye are not the main drivers of the region-wide non-compliance with the democracy and rule of law norms. External illiberal powers have been playing a secondary role, supporting some of the contestatory practices of local leaders against liberal norms. Therefore, considering its power of attraction in most of the Western Balkans, the EU should demand more tenaciously from regional governments to consistently carry out the necessary reforms that would foster the resilience of local institutions against both internal and external illiberal pressures.
