Instrumental Action and Norm Compliance in EU Enlargement Negotiations

To which extent and through which mechanisms might EU institutions shape the policies of member governments in interstate negotiations? This article examines the process through which legitimate actions and responsibilities for member governments were defined during the negotiations of Eastern enlargement and its impact on the policies of reluctant member states. Spanish governments from 1989 to 2004 dropped the initial intention to control the timing and gradually increased support for the process as the result of not only side-payments and trade-offs, but also the development of norms and rules defining appropriate action in the successive steps of the process and the existence of social mechanisms that elicited pro-norm behaviour.