The EU’s external democracy support efforts have revolved around mechanisms such as accession conditionality and socialisation, underpinned by the transfer of values, norms and procedures across an expanding area of EU external action. But while the definitive prospect of membership provided strong incentives for democratisation to Central and Eastern European candidate countries, the challenges to democracy support in the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood proved more formidable. The purpose of this workshop is to explore the challenges encountered by the EU in supporting democracy and democratic initiatives in its eastern and southern neighbourhood.
As an integration project dedicated to preserving peace among its Member States, the EU has evolved over the past six decades into a community of like-minded members who share a host of fundamental values such as human rights, equality, freedom and the rule of law. Crucially, democracy is the necessary scaffolding for supporting the principles that guide all EU policies, and which Brussels seeks to promote both within and outside its borders. The challenges encountered by the EU in supporting democracy and democratic initiatives in its eastern and southern neighbourhood can come in various ways from:
(a) The EU itself as the process of integration is continuing and as its own member states face democratic backsliding and erosion through the increase in right-wing populist party support
(b) The geopolitical location of the EU’s eastern and southern neighbours, considering the Great Power competition with Russia, China, the US and the sensitive relations in the Middle East
(c) The demand for democracy and support for democratisation processes within the countries of the eastern and southern neighbourhood.
The workshop is supported by three Horizon Europe projects that commenced work in 2023 and by 2024 will present innovative and novel insights into the working mechanisms of EU democracy support:
• REDEMOS: Reconfiguring EU Democracy Support – Towards a sustained demos in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood
• SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s Democracy Support in its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood
• EMBRACE: Embracing Change: Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood
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1: How effective are the EU’s strategies for democracy support towards the neighbourhood countries?
2: Has the EU’s good governance agenda been instrumental in promoting democracy?
3: How does competition between other international players affect democratisation in these countries?
4: What kind of a democracy is externally promoted, and what demand and support exists on the ground?
5: What is the opportunity for grassroot emergence of democratic initiatives?
| Title |
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| Developing democracy, soviet legacy, and geopolitical tension: how political parties impact democracy reform in Moldova and Georgia |
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| Plus ça change…Explaining EU policy adaption towards the European Neighbourhood in the light of rising authoritarianism |
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| Trust towards and support for the European Union in Armenia and Georgia: How trends changed during the last decade |
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| EU-Energy Policy with the EU’s Neighbourhood. An obstacle to democratic practices between the EU and the EaP countries? |
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| Gender Equality, Democracy Support and Security in the EU’s neighbourhood policies |
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| Conditional under what conditions? Analysing the democratic preconditions for the EU’s application of ex-ante aid allocation in the European neighbourhood |
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| Perception dynamics in democracy promotion: Exploring the EU’s external image and its impact on diplomatic practices |
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| Changing patterns of contestation of democracy support in the EU. Comparative analysis of EU member states’ practices in EU democracy support |
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| EU Member States Supporting Democracy in the Eastern Neighborhood? |
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| The Limited Attractiveness of EU-Style Liberal Democracy |
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| Assessing the effectiveness of EU democracy promotion strategies in the ENP: A theoretical framework |
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| Taking stock of the EU’s good governance agenda: what’s in it for democracy in the ENP? |
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| Much more than liberal democracy: Tracing the conceptual evolution of EU democracy promotion, 2004-2019 |
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| A new approach for evaluating democratic progress, stasis and regression in the Eastern Neighbourhood |
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