Adopted, Adapted, Resisted: The Everyday Implementation of EU Hate Crime and Hate Speech Norms in Enlargement Countries

Hate crime and hate speech have become prominent elements of the EU enlargement criteria, with candidate states expected to align not only their legislation but also their institutional practices with European standards. Yet little is known about how domestic actors in these states interpret, negotiate, and implement such expectations in practice. This paper examines the transfer of hate crime and hate speech norms in selected candidate states to show how EU-driven models are adopted, adapted, or resisted within domestic settings. Drawing on policy learning frameworks and a dataset of 36 elite and expert interviews, the paper traces developments in institutional practices for identifying, recording, and prosecuting hate crime. It focuses specifically on how transnational advocacy coalitions act as intermediaries in shaping reform trajectories. The results demonstrate that similar external incentives interact with distinct political and administrative environments to produce divergent reform outcomes. The conditions under which norms translate into meaningful institutional change are discussed. The paper contributes to debates on Europeanisation and policy learning by shifting attention from legal transposition to policy implementation and by offering a more actor-centred account of how contested fundamental rights norms travel.