Introduction: Conceptionalizing the EU`s Promotion of Democracy

Instruments of the EU's External Democracy Promotion

“…Regarding the choice of instruments of democracy promotion, Knodt and Jünemann (2007) developed a theoretical framework for what factors internal to the EU, the international context and properties of the third country and its relationship with the EU may affect the EU's choice of instruments (cf. Figure 1).…”

“…An element of the EU's external policy is the promotion of human rights, good governance and democracy. As to the motivation underlying the promotion of democracy, the EU is – according to its own understanding – driven by the universal motive to foster liberal democracy in the world (Petiteville, 2003; Knodt and Urdze, 2006; Knodt and Jünemann, 2007). The EU engages in promoting these features in almost all of its bilateral and multilateral relations with non‐EU countries (‘third countries’).…”

“…However, the commitment to fostering democracy – for whatever reason – is clearly not the only factor guiding the EU's activities in this domain. It is confronted with a range of situational opportunities and external constraints (Knodt and Jünemann, 2007).…”

“…Such an empirical analysis needs a theoretical framework and a comparative test of the predictions derived from that theoretical framework. While such a theoretical framework was developed by Knodt and Jünemann (2007), the derived hypotheses have not yet been systematically tested. The method suggesting itself is a comparison of the impact of conditions and motives on the choice of instruments.…”

“…While the contributions cover several regions, the selection of countries and, in particular, the selection of the factors in which the countries differ was in no way systematic or complete. What has been absent until now and what is supposed to be achieved in this article is a simultaneous comparison of several factors using basically all countries, in order to compare the relevance of factors and to test some of the hypotheses derived in Knodt and Jünemann (2007). After a brief discussion of instruments, we derive and operationalize hypotheses, and will test which features internal to the EU, which features of the addressee and which characteristics of the relationship between the EU and the addressee systematically affect the choice of instruments.…”