Triangulated Capture: EU Conditionality, Geopolitical Competition, and the Logic of State Capture in Serbia

Why did Serbia experience dramatic democratic backsliding and state capture after starting its EU accession process in 2012 while other Western Balkans states improved or remained stable? This article shows that geopolitical competition fundamentally transforms how EU conditionality affects governance in candidate countries. The existing stabilitocracy thesis correctly identifies baseline mechanisms through which EU conditionality can enable capture but this account is incomplete. I argue that when rival patrons like China and Russia offer alternative resources, two additional mechanisms activate. First, illiberal elites in candidate countries engage in strategic hedging, exploiting multiple external principals to insulate themselves from EU pressure. Second, the EU practices forbearance, tolerating backsliding to prevent candidates from pivoting toward competitors. These mechanisms interact in a feedback loop that accelerates capture. I test this triangulated capture framework using qualitative Bayesian inference applied to Serbia (2008-2024) as a crucial case where institutional hollowing, rival patron engagement, and EU conditionality exposure converge at maximal levels. Strong evidence demonstrates mechanism activation: strategic hedging and EU forbearance both emerge after 2014 when rival patron engagement intensified. My analysis reveals that EU enlargement policy operates under fundamentally different logic when illiberal elites in candidate countries can credibly hedge between competing principals, with important implications for understanding governance divergence and theories of democratic backsliding.