Why does Europeanization—the process of adopting European rules—advance in some countries, while it stalls in others? What explains different European trajectories of otherwise similar candidate states? This article explains foreign policy choices of EU candidate states with an identity-based theoretical framework. In states where European identity is a widely shared social value, the inevitable short-term costs of Europeanization—economic, social, and political—will still be worth the price of admission because becoming “European” trumps other domestic political concerns. In contrast, in countries where the European idea is not broadly shared, pro-European groups will find it hard to forge crosscutting coalitions needed to successfully promote Europeanization with all its associated costs. To illustrate these theoretical insights, I compare Europeanization in Croatia and Serbia, the two Balkan states with similar regional status, shared legacies of communism, and ethnic war, yet quite different European trajectories. I argue that the process of identity convergence explains Croatia's rapid compliance with controversial EU requirements, while in neighboring Serbia, identity divergence has derailed Serbia's EU candidacy.
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