The EU and the Arab Spring: Conditionality and Responsiveness in the Southern Neighbourhood

This paper analyses conditionality in formal agreements between the EU and MENA/’Southern Neighbourhood’ partners with particular respect to democracy and democratic transitions. While scepticism has frequently been expressed concerning both the EU’s commitment to genuine democratic transitions and about the appropriateness of the tools the EU has designed for this aim in the post-Uprising Mediterranean Neighbourhood, this research draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to conduct an in-depth analysis of the conceptual structure of policy statements and formal agreements in both pre- and post-Arab Uprisings policy documents and agreements. This analysis shows in a methodologically rigorous fashion how the limitations of EU policy are made possible. Given their substantial continuity with pre-Uprisings conditionality frameworks, it is unlikely that current policy will be any more effective, in turn worsening the EU’s poor reputation in the region as a democracy-promoter, already seriously dented before the Arab Uprisings