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Democracy promotion / Book

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:

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Download the full version of this publication, available in English (1025 kB)

Keywords

Democracy promotion European Neighbourhood Policy

Bio author: Jos Boonstra

Jos Boonstra is Senior Researcher for the democratisation programme at FRIDE. He focuses on EU, NATO and OSCE policies in Eastern Europe and beyond, with specific attention to democratisation in the spheres of security and defence.

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 graduated in International Relations and Art History from Tufts University and obtained her Masters in International Relations from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Prior to joining FRIDE, she was Deputy Director at the University of the Middle East Project in Madrid. She has also worked as a financial analyst at Lehman Brothers in London.

Bio author: Balázs Jarábik

Currently, Balázs Jarábik is head of Pact Ukraine in Kiev and associate fellow at FRIDE's Democratisation programme in Madrid.

Bio author: Kristina Kausch

Kristina Kausch is a Researcher at FRIDE's Democratisation Programme and focuses on European policies of democracy promotion in the European neighbourhood. She holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Göttingen. Prior to joining FRIDE in 2004, she worked for several years on programmes of good governance and democratisation for the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and at the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.