Visnja Vukov
Visnja Vukov is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna. She holds a PhD of the European University Institute in Florence and an MSc of the University of Oxford. Before joining the University of Vienna, she was as a tenure-track assistant professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and […]
Vukov, V. (2025). European integration and state capture: insights from the EU’s earlier Eastern enlargement. Journal of European Public Policy, 32(12), 3059–3084.
The EU’s enlargement policy has successfully strengthened state institutions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), while failing to do so in the Western Balkans (WB). This is often attributed to domestic political factors, or the ineffectiveness of the EU’s political conditionality in the WB, with its detrimental effects on democracy promotion. This paper instead focuses […]
Vukov, V. (2024). Strengthening state capacity: Lessons for the EU’s next enlargement (European Policy Analysis No. 2024:19epa). Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS).
This European policy analysis considers the main EU instruments for strengthening state capacity in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the 2004 and 2007 enlargements and draws lessons for the future EU enlargement. The analysis focuses on the forms of state capacity relevant for economic integration, which is widely considered a successful aspect of the […]
Bruszt, L. and Vukov, V. (2024) Core-periphery divisions in the EU? East-west and north-south tensions compared, Journal of European Public Policy, 31(3), 850–873.
Abstract: Divisive politicisation of inequalities among the member states in the EU is the lowest in member states where one would expect the highest level of domestic demand for it, and it is highest in member states in which one would expect much lower demand. In this paper, we argue that the territorially fragmented structure […]
Vukov, V. (2023). Growth models in Europe’s Eastern and Southern peripheries: between national and EU politics. New Political Economy, 28(5), 832–848.
This paper analyses the political origins of diverse peripheral growth models in Europe, focusing on debt-based consumption-led growth model in Southern Europe and FDI-based export-led growth model in Central and Eastern Europe. Contrary to existing approaches that attribute this East-South divergence to their geographic position and systemic features of European monetary integration, the paper argues […]
Vukov, V. (2020). European integration and weak states: Romania’s road to exclusionary development. Review of International Political Economy, 27(5), 1041–1062.
This paper challenges approaches that expect unavoidable decline in developmental state capacities as a result of European market integration. Using Romania’s automotive industry as its case study, the paper shows that deep integration with the EU forecloses protectionist strategies and builds state capacities for FDI-based development instead. While Romania was initially a weak state, deep […]
Vukov, V. (2020). More Catholic than the Pope? Europeanisation, industrial policy and transnationalised capitalism in Eastern Europe. Journal of European Public Policy, 27(10), 1546–1564.
European integration has reshaped the space for domestic industrial policies, foreclosing protectionist strategies, and instead promoting liberal industrial policies aimed at creating an integrated and competitive European market. Such Europeanisation proceeded further in East European states, which display more transnationalised growth models and rely on EU compliant industrial policies more than the West. The paper […]
Bruszt, L., & Vukov, V. (2017). Making states for the single market: European integration and the reshaping of economic states in the Southern and Eastern peripheries of Europe. West European Politics, 40(4), 663–687.
European integration has profoundly reshaped states in Europe’s peripheries. It has deprived them of the traditional means of autonomously managing development, imposed institutions defending the integrity of the regional market from domestic actors, and provided them, in exchange, with EU-level development policies. However, whereas in the South the EU has relied primarily on incentives for […]