Democracy Promotion in the EU’s Neighbourhood. From Leverage to Governance?

EU external democracy promotion has traditionally been based on ‘linkage’, i.e. bottom-up support for democratic forces in third countries, and ‘leverage’, i.e. the top-down inducement of political elites towards democratic reforms through political conditionality. The advent of the European Neighbourhood Policy and new forms of association have introduced a new, third model of democracy promotion which rests in functional cooperation between administrations. This volume comparatively defines and assesses these three models of external democracy promotion in the EU’s relations with its eastern and southern neighbours. It argues that while ‘linkage’ has hitherto failed to produce tangible outcomes, and the success of ‘leverage’ has basically been tied to an EU membership perspective, the ‘governance’ model of democracy promotion bears greater potential beyond the circle of candidate countries. This third approach, while not tackling the core institutions of the political system as such, but rather promoting transparency, accountability, and participation at the level of state administration, may turn out to remain the EU’s most tangible form of democratic governance promotion in the future.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

Contents:

1. EU democracy promotion in the neighbourhood: from leverage to governance? Sandra Lavenex and Frank Schimmelfennig

2. Political Conditionality and European Union’s cultivation of democracy in Turkey Paul Kubicek

3. From Brussels with love: leverage, bemchmarking, and the action plans with Jordan and Tunisia in the EU’s democratization policy Raffaella del Sarto and Tobias Schumacher

4. The EU’s two-track approach to democracy promotion: the case of Ukraine Tom Casier

5. The promotion of participatory governance in the EU’s external policies: compromised by sectoral economic interests? Anne Wetzel

6. Transgovernmental networks as catalysts for democratic change? EU functional cooperation with Arab authoritarian regimes and socialization of involved state officials into democratic governance Tina Freyburg

7. Democracy promotion through functional cooperation? The case of the European Neighbourhood Policy Tina Freyburg, Sandra Lavenex, Frank Schimmelfennig, Tatiana Skripka and Anne Wetzel