SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE EASTERN EU ENLARGEMENT: THE PERSPECTIVE OF A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH

This paper claims that the assessment of the eastern EU enlargement depends on the
adopted theoretical perspective. The practitioners of critical approaches in sociology claim
that mainstream approaches to European integration suffer from neglect. Critical thinkers
provide an alternative account of European integration claiming that it can be conceptualized
as enforcement mechanism for the spread of neoliberal capitalism. The eastern EU
enlargement should be analyzed on the basis of world-systems theory and post-colonial
theory. From this point of view, the post-communist political, social and economic
transformations based on the neoliberal economic theory have produced mixed results.
Specifically, economic neoliberalism is a flawed economic theory that demonstrated its
weakness in the post-2008 period. Transnational capital exploited EU spaces to force
a neoliberal agenda on the candidate states by way of conditionality. Narrow sectoral interests
took precedence over economic rationality and social policy goals. Hence, the relative failure
of post-communist transformations in such domains as: EU cohesion policy, unstable
democracies, or demography undermining future economic growth prospects. Moreover, the
multidimensional crisis initiated by forcing the neoliberal agenda on the candidate states has
initiated adverse social and political developments on EU-wide scale in such domains as anti-
immigration backlash and the ascendancy of far-right political parties.

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