Lendvai, N: Critical Dialogues

The EU entered into a very unique and particular landscape when ventured into the project of Eastern Enlargement, and engaged in a political, economic, social and cultural dialogue with the post-communist countries. The book, taking the standpoint of the candidate countries, aims to bring the indigenous perspectives and voices of accession countries into the academic forum. The EU Accession process is conceptualised as a complex multi-dimensional project , which transforms perceptions, identities, policy substance and policy formation, institutional structures, discourses and most of all policy meanings. Within this frame EU Accession is understood as a meeting point of national and supranational social policies and as a fragile dialogue of these two systems, with two different constructions, two different policymaking structures, two different historical legacies and social policy vocabulary. These two cultural systems , with their different understandings and meanings, acts as a mirror, making EU Accession a reflexive process, which highlights fundamental capacities and incapacities, institutional features, conceptual frameworks and political constructions.