In person icon Rethinking EU Democracy Support Policies in the EU’s Neighborhoods

Abstract

Democracy is in crisis, including in the EU’s eastern and southern neighborhoods, as shown by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) or Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) indices. For the EU, the two neighborhoods have always been of prime importance, and it has therefore attempted to support democratization in both regions for many years – albeit, with little success. Scholarly assessments have accordingly drawn a bleak picture, and researchers have identified several flaws. Some have pointed out that the EU has always prioritized its own interests over supporting political reforms. Others have criticized that only few select local actors have had a say in the EU’s democracy programs, that the EU has not sufficiently considered local specificities and ideas, or that the EU has always sustained the upper hand as the sender of democracy promotion instruments whereas partner countries have solely been regarded as recipients To explain the lack of success of EU democracy support policy, scholars have resorted to different conceptual lenses. Some have used regionalism, arguing that democracy support has been hampered by an increasing focus on security and stability. Others have adopted realist approaches to argue that the EU cannot find the right balance between (security) interests and democracy support and that the former will always be prioritized. Constructivist analysis have prominently resorted to the Normative Power Europe approach and critically assessed the EU’s (false) self-belief in the power of its own successful model of liberal democracy. While these approaches can help to shed light on the limited impact of EU democracy support policy, they all lack the tools to explore a key striking phenomenon: Involved actors rarely critically reflect on – and thereby learn from – EU democracy support malpractices and instead continue to reproduce them. To fill this gap, this panel aims to rethink EU democracy support policy by innovatively bringing learning- and practice-theoretical approaches into dialogue. To do this, all contributors apply a ‘conceptual triangle’ of practices, learning, and democracy (support). These contributions do not perceive democracy support in a narrow sense. Rather, they all acknowledge that EU policies in other areas, such as energy, migration, security and trade, also have implications for democratization and must hence be included in academic analysis. This novel lens allows panel contributors to critically assess existing EU democracy support policies and to suggest ways to strengthen learning and therewith improve this by addressing the underlying flaws.

Title	Details
Reconceptualizing EU Democracy Support: Linking Policy Learning and Practice-Theoretical Approaches	View Paper Details
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