OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
EU enlargement policy has long been hailed as the most effective form of external democracy promotion. Yet in recent years, democratic backsliding has emerged both among new member states and in current candidate countries. Why do we see such trends? I argue that unintended side effects of EU policies, but also shifts in the broader international context can account for the reduced effectiveness of EU democracy promotion. Focusing on the interaction between conditionality, domestic preferences, and the rise of authoritarian alternatives helps explain the puzzling lack of deep democratisation in the Western Balkans region. In short, credibility is key both for preventing democratic backsliding and for countering it once it has emerged.
