From Conditionality to Persuasion? Europeanization and the Rights of Sexual Minorities in Post-Accession Poland

Through an examination of sexual minorities' rights in Poland, this paper compares the effectiveness of 'external incentives' and 'social learning' as Europeanization mechanisms after EU enlargement in post-communist Europe. The politics surrounding the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Poland raise questions about the EU's capacity to foster norms of tolerance and non-discrimination now that accession has weakened the tools of external incentives. Through interviews with LGBT activists and political elites in Warsaw in 2007, I examine the potential of a policy of Europeanization through persuasion, or social learning.