Europe in listening mode? How the EU’s perception of its external image informs its practices of democracy promotion

Policy is formulated on what decision-makers think, not necessarily on what is. The foreign policy of the European Union (EU) is no different. Yet we know little about how EU officials think the EU and its external policies are perceived by their counterparts in the countries with which they work. Taking a particularly sensitive issue, democracy promotion, we examine the meta-perceptions that prevail within the EU institutions and their behavioural consequences in the European neighbourhood to the east. In addition to consolidating our understanding of what constitutes EU democracy promotion and how to avoid potential policy failures due to misperception, we seek to make both a theoretical and a methodological contribution. Theoretically, we revive research on external perceptions from the 1950s and 1970s and combine it with insights from the 'practice turn' to explore how EU practices of democracy promotion are shaped by how EU staff believes their activities and motivations are perceived externally. Methodologically, we explore this question by using qualitatively derived EU images in a quantitative questionnaire survey of relevant EU officials, based on an improved version of Q methodology. Our findings will reveal how EU diplomats perceive their own image in the Eastern neighborhood and whether they actively seize opportunities to manage how they are perceived by their counterparts.