On Narrow Paths and through Shallow Waters? - Discussing the Substance of EU Democracy Promotion
Hrant Kostanyan, Visiting Fellow, CEPS and PhD candidate, Ghent University
- Jan Orbie, Professor, Department of Political Science and Co-Director, Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University
- Anne Wetzel, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim
- Richard Youngs, Director, FRIDE and Associate Professor, University of Warwick
- Balthasar Benz, Principal Administrator, Democratisation, Division Democracy and Election observation, European External Action Service
CEPS Conference Room
1, Place du Congrès 1000 Brussels
Launch of a Special issue of the European Foreign Affairs Review (Click here to learn more about the project). With the financial support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.
Participation in this meeting is free of charge. A sandwich lunch will be served before the event.
While democracy promotion seems to become ever more important to EU foreign policy, it is still unclear what the EU aims to further in third countries. This event brings together scholars, practioners, EU officials and the interested public to discuss the substance of the EU's democracy promotion policy.
The special issue suggests that the EU has a narrow and shallow approach to democracy promotion.
It is narrow because the EU has put surprisingly little attention to some core issues of liberal democracy, such as political rights. Also, the EU has not as much focused on elections as often maintained.
At the same time, it is shallow because the EU places more emphasis on the context conditions than on the 'core' dimensions of democracy. What is more, it is often unclear how different elements of the EU's democracy promotion agenda are interlinked.
The event envisages to review these findings, outline their implications and draw practical conclusions for democracy promotion policy.