Recommendations
on EU Democracy Support
“In the EU you have half a billion people who share a common belief in democracy, in rights, in the kind of economic life we want.”
– Catherine Ashton –
This paper was authored by Nathan Vandeputte, Fabienne Bossuyt, Niels Keijzer, Christine Hackenesch, Evelyn Mantoiu, Danio Di Mauro, Christopher Wingens, Stefania Panebianco and Julia Leininger.
This policy brief is co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Union, within the frame of the M.O.R.D.O.R. project (E+
In light of renewed European Union (EU) efforts to protect the global state of democracy – as shown by initiatives such as the 2019 Council Conclusions, the Global Summits for Democracy, the Team Europe Democracy initiative, or recently the European Commission proposal for a European Democracy Shield – global trends threaten the capacity and willingness of the EU to actually do so. Indeed, with growing criticism of European interventions, accusations of double standards, geopolitical shifts and systemic rivalry with other international players, alongside domestic challenges in Europe, the fundamental question of whether the EU should engage in democracy support is both quietly raised and answered by being effectively overtaken by other foreign policy priorities.
This policy brief presents reflections and recommendations on how the EU can meaningfully support democracy in the new geopolitical reality. It challenges the EU to more fundamentally reconsider the intended and unintended consequences of its broader strategic foreign policy actions on (prospects for) democracy in its partner countries, and develops five ideas for how the EU can do so.
Background
The 2nd major objective of M.O.R.D.O.R. is to bring change to EU policy-making in regard to democracy support, by providing EU policy-makers and democracy support practitioners with top-notch recommendations.
The EU’s capacity and willingness to meaningfully empower democratization and preserve democratic achievements globally is increasingly called into question. Internally, the EU finds itself challenged by a political landscape increasingly influenced by populist radical right parties, whose growing power, intent, and capability threaten decision-making in Brussels related to democracy support. Externally, the geopolitical context also prompts the EU to pursue a more explicitly interest driven foreign policy agenda, as evidenced through its discourse around principled pragmatism, strategic economy, and becoming a geopolitical commission. Furthermore, authoritarian powers become increasingly effective in exporting and promoting their views on autocracy. Contributing to such effectiveness is the observation that the EU’s foreign policy agenda is often seen as inconsistent, self-serving, and marked by double standards, leading to growing criticism and resistance from societies in the Global South.
Given such threats to the relevance of the EU as a global supporter of democracy supporter, the goal is to inform leading EU policy-makers on how the EU can meaningfully support and protect democracy in the new geopolitical reality. Beyond limiting our assessment to the effectiveness of the EU’s dedicated democracy support policies, particular attention will be given to addressing how the EU’s ambition to support and protect democracy globally can be pursued in synergy with, rather than opposed to, its strategic material interests. In addition, instead of merely extrapolating normative frameworks that are biased by Western-centric worldviews and expectations about democracy, particular attention is also given to assessing the EU’s foreign policy from the perspective of how authoritarian regimes function and their societies react, and to what extent this policy aligns with the he democratic visions as articulated by those who live it (or hope to live it).
The findings will be published in a range of policy-papers covering (among other):
- a theoretical and conceptual framework valuing “relevance” over “effectiveness”
- analysis of EU democracy support in relation to its broader foreign policy objectives: current vectors, obstacles and opportunities
- analysis of the responsiveness of the EU’s foreign policy agenda towards democratic openings and closures
- empirical examples of the EU’s interventions in Lebanon, Uganda and Bolivia
- recommendations on how to merge its foreign policy objectives with the normative requirement to support democracy
The target audiences are:
- EU Policy-makers
- EU foreign policy analysts
Goals
– Connect area experts with dictatorship scholars and EU foreign policy analysts to contrast theory-driven insights with regional expertise to create new recommendations for EU policy-makers.
– Inform leading EU policy-makers on the current effectiveness of the EU multi-vector democracy-promoting policies from the perspective of how dictatorships function and react instead of extrapolating normative frameworks that are biased by democratic or Western-centric worldviews and expectations.
EU Policy Paper Team
Team Leaders
Fabienne
Bossuyt
Universiteit Gent
Fabienne Bossuyt is Associate Professor at and co-coordinator of the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES) at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University. She is a senior lecturer in the MA programme in EU Studies and the MA Programme in Global Studies. In addition, she is co-director of the Russia Platform of Ghent University. She is also a Professorial Fellow at UNU-CRIS, and is active as an affiliated researcher of EUCAM. Her main area of expertise is the EU’s relations with Central Asia. Her most recent research projects focus on various aspects of the EU’s relations with and policies towards Central Asia and other post-Soviet countries, including development policy and human rights promotion.
Nathan Vandeputte
UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Nathan Vandeputte is a PhD Researcher and teaching assistant at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies. His research concerns EU democracy support in Uganda, whereby he approaches ‘democracy’ from a decentered, radical democratic theoretical perspective. Specifically, he engages with the question: how to conceptualize ‘the political’ when rejuvenating EU democracy support? Prior to starting his PhD, Nathan obtained his Master degree in EU studies at Ghent University in 2016 (summa cum laude).
Consortium Experts
These experts are involved in reviewing current EU democracy support strategies, the existing literature and relevant recommendations and then build upon them, also using input from dictatorship experts and Area Study Experts. These specialists (both scholars and policy-analysts) will be tasked with creating content for the concept paper, and later update it with above mentioned input, creating the final version of the EU Policy Paper.
This group will also contribute blog posts, info-graphics, shorter reports, etc.) They will share their practical experience as teachers during master class of policy-analysis and EU policy.
