A Demos-Centred Approach to EU Democracy Promotion in Its Eastern Neighbourhood

• In Event: Reconceptualizing Democracy Promotion: The EU and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The EU has been deploying a number of democracy promotion strategies towards the European Neighborhood countries, some with a degree of success and some which have underperformed. One of the main criticisms in the context of these approaches has been their detachment from the demos, i.e., from the actual needs and desires of the populations they target. The EU has often been faulted for failing to engage meaningfully with citizens in the neighbourhood, neglecting the role of the demos in the viability of institutional structures, and thus omitting important opportunities for state-non-state actor interplay. Against this background, this paper calls for a paradigm shift in (EU) democracy promotion and support that dedicates a more central role to the demos. In discussing the paradigmatic shift from democracy promotion via democracy support to democracy collaboration, it presents a new framework for gauging citizen sentiment as far as democratic values, norms, procedures and practices are concerned. It therefore highlights the active involvement of citizens in co-creating, and co-monitoring the application of democracy promotion and support strategies that shift the pendulum from autocratisation to democratisation, and render EU policies towards the eastern neighbourhood more responsive. The paper is structured as follows: first, we take stock of EU democracy promotion strategies in the neighbourhood, emphasising the mechanisms at work and focal areas of concern; second, we identify why these strategies are problematic from the perspective of ‘quality of democracy’ promotion and support, and advance democracy collaboration as a paradigm shift revolving around the citizen component of democracy; third, we describe the three analytic departures from ‘mainstream’ democracy promotion that characterise democracy collaboration; finally, we embark on a conceptualising and operationalising exercise meant to carve out concrete ways for the EU to engage in democracy collaboration with eastern neighbourhood societies and polities.

Authors

• Madalina Dobrescu, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Theofanis Exadaktylos, University of Surrey

• Ragnar Weilandt, Norwegian University of Science and Technology