Analysing the casual relationship between politicization and differentiation: The case of North Macedonia

The synthetic approach to (differentiated) integration regards integration as the result of preference convergence among national governments under the circumstances of high interdependence and low politicization. Preferences thereby become endogenous the further the process advances, meaning that the supranational level turns into an additional driver for integration that constrains national governments. Nonetheless, initial integration is only expected to proceed if politicization remains low, while it will stagnate or differentiate when politicization is high (Leuffen, Rittberger, and Schimmelfennig 2022). Existing literature, thus, understands differentiated integration (DI) as one possible outcome in the process of European Integration, when high politicization prevents the convergence of national preferences. Applied to the context of EU enlargement, the synthetic approach identified two distinct ideational factors that cause politicization: the attachment to the national political system (Leuffen et al., 2022, pp. 390–391) and ideational heterogeneity (ibid.). The first was used in cases where membership was refused, as in Switzerland and Norway, and explains politicization as the result of opposition to full integration that derived from attachments towards “their national democratic institutions, the strength of Eurosceptic parties, and national veto opportunities” (ibid.). In contrast, the exclusion of aspiring candidates is explained as a result of differences in the attachment to shared norms and values (ibid., p. 383), so-called “ideational heterogeneity” (ibid., p. 135). This explanation has been linked to the cases of Serbia and Turkey, where the lack of shared European ideas and values manifests itself in the unwillingness for reform implementation. This, in turn, results in a politicization of their membership perspective among EU members and makes DI a tool for dealing with ideational heterogeneity (ibid., p. 391). The case of North Macedonia, however, reveals certain difficulties with this understanding of DI, as the country’s accession process has been determined by continuous vetoes from individual member states, concretely Bulgaria, Greece and France. The paper, therefore, aims to contribute to the “theorization and analysis of enlargement beyond the ‘in or out’ binary” by exploring in which ways the synthetic approach can credibly account for the polarization of the accession process of North Macedonia. This is done through a qualitative analysis of expert-interviews conducted in North Macedonia on the topic of DI and enlargement. Interviews were conducted in order to test whether the supposed attachment of to the national political context, as identified in the cases of Switzerland and Norway, or ideological heterogeneity, as identified in the cases of Serbia and Turkey, impact the consideration about differentiation or full integration in North Macedonia. Preliminary results indicate that neither the attachment to the national political system nor a disagreement with European norms and values impact considerations about DI. Proposals for differentiation are perceived to be the result of a missing interdependence between France and North Macedonia instead of a polarization of the process. Moreover, interviewees only identified a misfit with European values on the side of vetoing member states, which again did not lead to a polarization in North Macedonia or demands for DI.