FRIDE - Is the European Union supporting democracy in its neighbourhood?

Is the European Union supporting democracy in its neighbourhood?

19/12/2008 By Jos Boonstra, Julia Choucair Vizoso, Ana Echagüe, Balázs Jarábik, Kristina Kausch, Richard Youngs

Despite the EU’s broad formal commitments to promote democratic norms, the feeling is widespread that in practice European governments have become less committed to promoting political change in many third countries. Overall, the EU appears to be failing to meet the challenges of a more complex international environment for democracy and human rights, having declined fundamentally to reassess its democracy support in either qualitative or quantitative terms.

This book aims to enhance understanding of the EU’s role in promoting human rights and democratic norms in the European Neighbourhood. It does so through a detailed study of the full range of different EU instruments available to support human rights improvements and democratic reform in Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan. The book offers detailed studies of the extent to which democracy and human rights commitments made under European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) action plans and the national bilateral assistance programmes of EU member states are being implemented in practice.

It is hoped that these studies can help move debates on the ‘European model of human rights and democracy promotion’ beyond the general to country-specific operational challenges. The authors identify lessons learned and offer concrete policy recommendations on how the EU can increase the effectiveness of its efforts to promote human rights and democracy in its Neighbourhood and beyond.

This book has been produced in collaboration with ECFR

Look at some of the chapters:

Lebanon by Julia Choucair Vizoso
Jordan by Ana Echagüe
Azerbaijan by Jos Boonstra
Morocco by Kristina Kausch

Keywords

Democracy promotion European Neighbourhood Policy

Bio author: Jos Boonstra

Jos Boonstra is a senior researcher at FRIDE.He is currently coordinating the EU-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) project.

Bio author: Julia Choucair Vizoso

Julia Choucair Vizoso is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University and a nonresident associate at FRIDE.

Bio author: Ana Echagüe

Ana Echagüe is a researcher at FRIDE. Her research focuses on political reform in the Arab world, democratisation, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council

Bio author: Balázs Jarábik

Balázs Jarábik is an associate fellow at FRIDE. His research mainly focuses on CIS affairs, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and democracy promotion.

Bio author: Kristina Kausch

Kristina Kausch is a researcher at FRIDE. Her research focuses on European policies in the EU's neighbourhood, in particular in the Southern Mediterranean, democracy, human rights and governance, and political Islam.

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Director General of FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.