Daniel C. Thomas is Professor of International Relations at Leiden University. He earned a PhD in Government at Cornell University and taught previously at universities in the US and Ireland. He also worked on human rights and international criminal justice at the European Commission's Directorate General for External Relations (precursor to the European External Action Service).

• Questions and Arguments


• 1: The Question of Membership


• 2: Explaining Membership Eligibility


• Membership Outcomes


• 3: The Evolution of EU Membership Norms


• 4: with Patrick D. Statsch: Membership Eligibility in Statistical and Comparative Perspective


• Membership Processes


• 5: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Non-Communist States, 1957-1961


• 6: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Parliamentary Democracies, 1962-1969


• 7: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Liberal Democracies, 1970-2005


• 8: Membership Eligibility in a Divided Europe, 2006-present


• Conclusions and Implications


• 9: Rethinking Europe, rethinking regions


• Appendix: Imputing missing Freedom House data from V-Dem data

This book is a multi-method study of the European Union's decision-making on enlargement over seven decades, showing how membership norms shape decision-making on which states are considered eligible to join the EU and which are not.