The Substance of EU Democracy Promotion: Introduction and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

When, in October 2009, the European Parliament adopted its resolution on democracy building in the European Union’s (EU) external relations, it urged the EU ‘to publicly endorse the UN General Assembly’s 2005 definition of democracy as the reference point for its own democratisation work’ (European Parliament 2009: Art. 7). This call is remarkable because it exemplifies the thin conceptual basis of EU democracy promotion. At that time, it represented a further step in ongoing attempts to define the meaning of ‘democracy’ in EU external actions. Eventually, however, the call went unheard. To this day, the EU has not (yet) accepted a single definition of democracy that guides its democracy promotion activities. Scholars have recently come to the conclusion that the conceptual basis of EU democracy promotion can be summarized as ‘fuzzy liberalism’ (see the chapter by Milja Kurki in this edited volume).