@article{1b89e2fc68e74df796f2bce73230d428,
title = "Unintended Consequences of EU Democracy Support in the European Neighbourhood",
abstract = "The European Union's (EU) impact on the political governance of the European neighbourhood is varied and sometimes opposite to the declared objectives of its democracy support policies. The democracy promotion literature has to a large extent neglected the unintended consequences of EU democracy support in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The EU has left multiple imprints on the political trajectories of the countries in the neighbourhood and yet the dominant explanation, highlighting the EU's security and economic interests in the two regions, cannot fully account for the unintended consequences of its policies. The literature on the 'pathologies' of international organisations offers an explanation, emphasizing the failures of the EU bureaucracy to anticipate, prevent or reverse the undesired effects of its democracy support in the neighbourhood.",
keywords = "Democracy promotion, ENP, unintended consequences, bureaucracy, Eastern Europe, MENA, INTERNATIONAL-ORGANIZATIONS, PROMOTION, DEMOCRATIZATION, STABILITY, POLICY, PATHOLOGIES, PERFORMANCE, GOVERNANCE, POLITICS, AGENDA",
author = "Assem Dandashly and Gergana Noutcheva",
note = "Funding Information: In the southern neighbourhood, “non-democrats – coercive regime remnants and radical charismatic movements – were empowered by the competitive interference of rival powers in uprising states{\textquoteright} (Hinnebusch 2015, 335). Both the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are primarily concerned with their members{\textquoteright} stability at the expense of democracy and human rights. No membership of an Arab League member has ever been revoked due to lack of democracy, use of excessive force against its citizens, or human rights{\textquoteright} violations. When the protests broke out in Tunisia in December 2010, followed by those in Egypt in early 2011, the Arab League held an economic and social summit in Egypt in January 2011 “that studiously ignored the uprisings and made no reference to the explosion of popular demand for the very issues that they were discussing” (Schmitter and Sika 2017, 454). Furthermore, GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rushed to support the stability of incumbent authoritarian regimes at the expense of democracy promotion through direct military intervention in Bahrain and Yemen and financial support to Egypt (454). On the whole, the involvement of the GCC countries worsened the conditions for democracy in the MENA as they did and still do not share an interest in democracy promotion, but rather feared that their own regime survival might be shaken by the wave of democratic changes in neighbouring countries. The EU certainly anticipated a greater role for other regional players in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, but the blocking effects on democracy support of these actors{\textquoteright} interventions in most domestic contexts occurred despite the EU{\textquoteright}s expectations. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019, {\textcopyright} 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",
year = "2019",
month = mar,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1080/03932729.2019.1554340",
language = "English",
volume = "54",
pages = "105--120",
journal = "International Spectator",
issn = "0393-2729",
publisher = "Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group",
number = "1",
}