Unpacking EU democracy assistance. What model of democracy does EU funding suit?

Donors face challenges in accurately identifying democracy assistance spending, as such assistance is often intertwined with other financial support. This ambiguity stems from different interpretations of what constitutes democracy support. This is particularly true in the European Union (EU), where the present diversity of political systems and of understandings of democracy makes it difficult to isolate a single model. This paper makes two contributions: it conceptually acknowledges the diversity of democracy in democracy assistance, and it empirically assesses which types of democracy are promoted by the EU in the Eastern Neighbourhood over time and across countries. Its systematic analysis of OECD aid data shows that the EU predominantly promotes a common understanding of liberal democracy and, given the region's instability and security challenges, invests significantly in peacebuilding efforts. Unexpectedly, the participatory model of democracy assistance has gained prominence since 2013, while the egalitarian model is less represented, contrary to expectations about the EU's focus on socio-economic conditions. The electoral and feminist models receive the least funding. The study seeks to answer the question of whether EU democracy support is driven by strategic priorities or by external events, among other pivotal questions related to democracy assistance. Our systematic but flexible approach allows others to adapt the publicly available data from the OECD to their own conceptualisations of what democracy assistance might be about.