Beyond the rhetorics of compliance

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Anitta M. Hipper examines to what extent and under what conditions the EU's transformative power met with resistance in Romania. The book touches upon a raw nerve for most post-communist societies: justice and anti-corruption reform. Through the use of a context-sensitive approach, it assesses how domestic factors influenced the implementation of EU conditionality towards Romania from 1990 to 2012. Empirical investigations reveal a struggle between various interested parties in complying with EU conditionality. As a result, a complex layer of (non-)compliance emerged and it became a Herculean task to ensure the sustainability of reform by reformist forces within Romania and the EU.