Reform and Compliance: The Impact of International Conditionality on Romania

Negotiated conditionality is a core strategy of international organizations to encourage candidate countries to comply with their political or economic standards. Its key feature is given by its strategic calculations. The argument of this paper is that the conditionality mechanisms can be topped by rather complicated bargaining rational thinking which results in half-finished reforms conducted with delays and which often match yesterday’s development preferences of the international actors. The focus of the paper is to propose a concept and to illustrate a model of Romania’s strategic practices as a newcomer country aspiring to integrate within international actors’ clubs.