In: Europe-Asia Studies, 66 (1). pp. 67-87.
Abstract:Applying discursive institutionalism, this article identifies a hitherto overlooked disconnect between rule adoption and implementation and their discursive denial as an example of 'shallow' Europeanisation. This empirical study of Serbia's visa liberalisation and implications for its Kosovo policy, resulting from the simultaneous pursuit of Enlargement and Common Foreign and Security Policy, demonstrates the European Union's leverage on policy, pointing to Serbia's compliance indicative of recognition of Kosovo's border, which is obscured by nationalist discourse on Serbia's territorial integrity. Such incoherent Europeanisation in policy and discursive 2 domains exposes limits to the explanatory purchase of rational institutionalism and sociological institutionalism.