The EU makes extensive efforts to promote democracy in the Mediterranean region, not least in the wake of the Arab uprisings. The objective of the book to be presented is to make a systematic, in-depth, theoretically based analysis of EU democracy promotion in relation to a selection of Mediterranean countries (Jordan and Turkey), focusing the perceptions and orientations on both sides. By looking closer into different aspects of how EU democracy promotion has actually been carried out – and received – EU’s democracy promotion efforts in neighbouring Mediterranean states are thus analysed and assessed. To understand how EU has been working hitherto to promote democracy – what it has done well and where it has gone wrong – is of vital importance as a new approach now is laid out.
This book argues that recipients of democracy promotion efforts need to be taken into account to a larger extent than has often been the case in the past, both in setting up democracy promotion and in analyzing it. To this effect, I outline a theoretically based analytical framework that draws together insights from different academic fields. In contributing to the development of theories on democracy promotion, I thus propose a theoretical framework for analysing the prerequisites of democracy promotion in general, as well as for EU democracy promotion towards its Mediterranean neighbours. Needless to say, many aspects contribute to a successful promotion of democracy. However, I make a case for the importance of three vital elements in order for democracy promotion to be successful, namely (1) orientation towards to the project of democracy promotion on the part of the target country, (2) local ownership of the project, based on a basic commitment to democracy, and (3) dialogue between the democracy promoter and different segments of the target state.
