Conceptualizing norm diffusion and norm contestation in the European neighbourhood: introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

The introduction to the special issue sets out to examine the normative rivalry between the European Union and other regional actors and how it plays out at the domestic level in the societies of the European neighbourhood. Drawing on the International Relations literature on norm diffusion, and in particular on the scholarship on norm contestation, we posit that the degree and nature of domestic contestation of external political norms (both EU and non-EU) has consequences for norm diffusion in specific domestic settings. We deepen the conceptual understanding of the encounter between external and domestic political norms by emphasizing the agency of domestic societies and the importance of domestic normative structures in the processes of acceptance, modification or rejection of external normative influence. We provide empirical evidence about competing normative influences collected from a plethora of case studies from the eastern and the southern European neighbourhoods allowing us to draw a cross-regional parallel about the political ideas more likely to gain traction in the societies of Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Norm diffusion
• norm contestation
• democracy promotion
• Eastern Europe
• MENA

Introduction

Almost three decades after Francis Fukuyama famously announced the “end of history,”¹ the consensus about liberal democracy as the “only game in town” has begun to unravel. Contestation over the dominant liberal democratic script is omnipresent and comes from within as well as from outside the West. Democracy promotion is under strain as competing notions of political order surge to the fore against an image of a struggling liberal democratic West. Among the regions where this contestation is more acutely felt is the European neighbourhood. In this environment, powerful regional non-democratic actors have seized the stage and challenged the normative foundations on which the European Union (EU) claims to build its policies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA),² inter alia putting forward alternative ideas of political order.

The literature on the impact of international actors on political change in the European neighbourhood has focused narrowly on Western actors – the EU’s democracy support policies in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy³ and the United States’ policies of selective engagement in the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood.⁴ The role of illiberal powers in undermining democracy support or directly strengthening authoritarian rule has featured less in the academic debate. Existing research⁵ remains inconclusive to date regarding the policies and impact of individual players such as China, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. We still know little about how ideas related to these actors travel across borders and affect societal notions about legitimate political authority in different domestic settings.

The literature has emphasized the dominant role of material incentives and disincentives in explaining the policies and impact of external actors – both Western and non-Western. Scholarship dealing with Western policies has mainly zoomed in on externally supported political transformation, whereby material incentives seek to empower liberal reform coalitions.⁶ Similarly, the literature examining non-Western actors has mirrored the examination of Western democracy support policies by emphasizing the policies of rewards and punishments pursued by powerful autocracies.⁷ Non-democratic regional powers are unlikely keen to promote autocracy intentionally even though “autocracy strengthening” might be the consequence of their behaviour. In some cases, illiberal regimes may even promote democracy, if it suits their geostrategic interests.⁸ While the actions of such illiberal players have been attributed to rational motives rather than an ideological commitment to authoritarian rule,⁹ the attractiveness of the political ideas of both liberal and illiberal actors and their softer means of influencing the neighbourhood have more often been neglected than scrutinized in the literature.¹⁰

This special issue aims to move beyond the narrow focus of the literature on the policies of Western actors and on the rational approach of external actors in pursuing political change by (1) examining the competing norms of political authority of the EU and some non-EU actors in the eastern and the southern European neighbourhoods; (2) investigating societal and elite reactions to externally promoted political norms in the neighbourhood; and (3) making a cross-regional comparison of the degree of traction that externally promoted political ideas have in the societies of the two neighbourhoods. In order to gain a better understanding of political norm diffusion and norm contestation in the neighbourhood, the special issue seeks to address the following main questions:

1. Which are the external political norms that the societies of the European neighbourhood are exposed to and whose norms are they? (which and whose?)

2. Who are the main domestic actors and what are the domestic normative structures that determine the degree of acceptance, modification or rejection of external political norms in the societies of the European neighbourhood? (who and what?)

3. How does domestic norm contestation manifest itself and what does it mean for political norm diffusion in the European neighbourhood? (how and to what effect?)

We focus on the normative rivalry between Western and non-Western actors and how this rivalry plays out at the domestic level in the societies of the European neighbourhood. We take the EU as an example of Western influence, and Russia, Turkey and the Gulf countries as examples of non-Western influence. In the eastern neighbourhood, the normative competition is largely defined by the confrontation between EU-inspired and Russia-related norms. In the southern neighbourhood, a more plural normative landscape exists with intersecting normative influences linked to multiple players, both Western and non-Western. Our study of external political norm diffusion is not exhaustive, yet departs from a rich plethora of conflicting normative influences to examine how such a contested external environment affects the prospects for political change or non-change in the European neighbourhood.

We posit that the degree and nature of domestic contestation of external political norms (both EU and non-EU) has consequences for norm diffusion in specific domestic settings. To develop this argument we borrow insights from the International Relations (IR) literature on norm diffusion, in particular from the scholarship on norm contestation.¹¹ We deepen the conceptual understanding of the encounter between external and domestic political norms by emphasizing the agency of domestic societies and the importance of domestic normative structures in the processes of acceptance, modification or rejection of external normative influence. We provide empirical evidence about competing normative influences collected from a plethora of case studies from the eastern and the southern European neighbourhoods allowing us to draw a cross-regional parallel about the political ideas more likely to gain traction in the societies of the two neighbourhoods. In the subsequent sections we examine the three questions that are central to this special issue, delving into the conceptual debates on norm diffusion and norm contestation and weaving in the findings from the case studies.

External political norms and actors in the European neighbourhood

We start by unpacking the contents of the different political norms that have currency in the two regional settings and are associated with the main regional actors in the two respective contexts (which and whose?). The regional players in the European neighbourhood stand for and promote different norms of political authority, which sets the stage for competition of normative influences in Eastern Europe and the MENA. This analysis allows us to identify whether there are any competing political models that vie for influence in the neighbourhood (introduction to the special issue by Dandashly and Noutcheva; Cassier in this special issue; Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). The aim is to present a fair exemplification of alternative ideas of political governance derived from poles of attraction other than the EU.

In this special issue, we take the EU as the main liberal actor in both neighbourhoods. Our point of departure is the meaning of democracy and the type of political model the EU tries to export. The EU’s ideas about political life are rooted in its own political norms encoded in its founding treaties and shared by its member states. The normative fundamentals of the EU’s political order are well established in its official narrative. The EU “is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”¹² This normative script has been reaffirmed in several rounds of EU enlargement and neighbourhood policy. Paradoxically, it is precisely in this part of Europe where the challenges to the EU’s democratic acquis have become most daunting in recent times. The so-called “illiberal turn” first documented in Hungary and Poland illustrates the rising contestation of the EU’s own political model internally and the growing legitimacy problem of EU democracy promotion externally.¹³

The main bone of contestation that has emerged from both internal practice and external critics is the liberal element of the EU’s democratic script.¹⁴ The EU’s own foreign policy discourse does not invoke directly the term “liberal democracy,” but core elements of liberal democracy are clearly discernible in its narrative on “deep and sustainable democracy” in the neighbourhood.¹⁵ Although scholars have decried the lack of a coherent conceptual approach in the EU’s democracy promotion,¹⁶ the liberal overtones of the EU’s main democracy frame are hard to deny.¹⁷

Democracy and liberalism have evolved to become inseparable components of the Western democratic state but the two notions denote different principles of democratic rule.¹⁸ Most definitions of democracy, including classical writings by Schumpeter, Dahl, Huntington,¹⁹ etc., emphasize the procedural aspects of democratic rule that determine the process of electing a government, representative of the will of people. Democracy in this sense is a system “in which the most powerful collective decision makers are selected through fair, honest, and periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes, and in which virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote.”²⁰ In contrast, liberalism as a political principle requires that individual liberty is protected from state power and that limitations are placed on government authority with the aim of guaranteeing equality, justice, and individual rights and freedoms.²¹ This is achieved through constitutional arrangements that secure these rights and that confine the exercise of power by the executive.²² While there might be “an inevitable tension” between democracy and liberalism,²³ the two principles can hardly be set apart in the Western notion of democratic rule.²⁴ Any attempt at eroding the system of checks and balances that controls the power of the state to undermine individual rights and freedoms can be viewed as illiberal. As Zakaria put it in his much-debated piece “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” democracy without constitutional liberalism is at the core of an illiberal polity.²⁵

The spread of illiberal democracy among the EU member states and the inadequate attempts at the EU level to halt the erosion of liberal democracy among its own ranks has delivered a serious blow to the EU’s ambition to support democracy abroad. Not only has this democratic backsliding within some EU member states left ample ground for other regional actors to contest the EU’s democratic outreach in the neighbourhood, it has also cast a shadow over the EU’s normative appeal in the eyes of the neighbourhood societies themselves. It has also empowered authoritarian regimes across the regions to deny democratic rights to their citizens.

In the eastern neighbourhood, Russia has seized this opportunity to promote its own ideas about political life and to present itself as an alternative model for Eastern European societies. The official Russian discourse asserts political distinctiveness based on a few very general ideas about political life. One is a strong state with a tendency for personalistic leadership seen as necessary to mitigate potential conflicts in societies and economies undergoing transformation.²⁶ Another is the emphasis on traditional societal values and cultures and respect for ethnic and religious diversity. The latter is a particularly strong recurring theme not only in the Kremlin narrative, but also in that of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Russia’s political rhetoric, “traditional values” are interpreted exclusively as religious values and include references to broad notions such as faith, justice, peace, freedom, unity, dignity and patriotism.²⁷ While these pronouncements do not present a coherent political example to emulate, they do contain a set of ideas that guide state-society relations (Casier in this special issue). Inherent in these views is the acknowledgement of diverse political paths and the sovereign right of nations to choose their own political model.²⁸

Political practice by the Russian government has diverged substantially from its rhetoric. Scholars have qualified Russia’s domestic regime under President Putin as increasingly and distinctly autocratic.²⁹ This practice has however not entailed the promotion of authoritarianism or the unequivocal support of autocratic rule abroad. Unlike democracy promoters who tend to emulate their own experiences with democracy in their foreign policies,³⁰ what Russia stands for in its external relations should be disentangled from its own domestic political practice (Casier in this special issue). Casier (in this special issue) unpacks further the substance of political norms that Russia tries to project at the international level.

In the southern neighbourhood, one of the main debates centres on the role of Islam in socio-political life and the compatibility of Islam and democracy.³¹ The discussions focus on the concept of state and nation according to Islam, the legitimacy of revolting against tyrants, the ideal type of Islamic rule, and how it can fit with democratic principles.³² We explore various ideas that are domestically driven and associated with regional actors such as Turkey, Iran and/or the Gulf monarchies. Within the MENA region, politics, culture, traditions and religion are interconnected, and intertwining these aspects lies at the base of its governance model. Traditional values are understood in light of religious beliefs and incorporate broad ideas such as faith, justice, peace, freedom, rights, unity, dignity, equality and responsibility. While these Islamic-based values do not form a clear political blueprint, they do guide state-society relations in the Muslim world. Islam is considered “a way of life” – a religion that covers issues from the day-to-day life to setting guidelines for governing.

These alternative political ideas compete with the EU’s liberal model (Weilandt in this special issue; Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). Weilandt (in this special issue) dissects the Tunisian society (Islamists, secular-conservatives and secular progressives) and shows how Islam-inspired ideas resonate with segments of the population and how EU-inspired liberal ideas are contested by part of the national community (by Islamists and secular-conservatives, in particular). Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly (in this special issue) demonstrate how the Egyptian society first endorsed the Turkish political experience as an alternative model and soon after contested or rejected various elements of it, either because it was viewed as too secular (by different Islamist groups) or as too Islamic (by different liberal and secular groups). Khakee (in this special issue) shows how even more open political systems can firewall either liberal human rights norms (Israel) or Islamist norms (Tunisia) through foreign funding regulation, pointing to the ongoing normative rivalry between Western and non-Western ideas at the heart of MENA societies.

The regional players in the European neighbourhood represent and promote different norms of political authority, which sets the stage for competition for soft influence in Eastern Europe and the MENA. Situations in which conflicting norms define the international context have only recently become the focus of scholarly attention, creating a surge in the literature on norm contestation and resistance. Much of the literature on norm diffusion assumes the existence of liberal international norms such as norms related to armed conflict, racial equality, international whaling and human rights³³ and ignores the domestic normative resistance to externally promoted norms.

The power of local agency and domestic normative structures

Given that societies in the European neighbourhood are exposed to different and at times incompatible external normative influences, one expects domestic contestation of some of the external ideas about political life by different elites and societal groups. We consider that political norms are not rigid categories and may change over time as those societies which embrace them, as well as those that do not, continually change as influenced by local culture, religion, openness to external normative standards, etc. Norms research has acknowledged the importance of local agency in the processes of diffusing and localizing external norms.³⁴ Existing scholarship has also recognized the significance of domestic normative structures for the spread of ideas across borders, emphasizing the degree of “cultural match” between the external and internal normative orders as a key condition for transnational norm travel.³⁵ The domestic sociocultural context features strongly in the norm contestation research agenda as well, highlighting the production of meanings of norms through cultural practices in different normative environments.³⁶

Building on insights from the literature on norm diffusion/contestation, we go one step further by unpacking local agency and showing how different constellations of elites and societal groups engage with external political norms in the countries examined. We demonstrate how the distinct normative contexts in the two neighbourhoods, the eastern one marked significantly by the Soviet legacy and the southern one defined to a considerable degree by the role of Islam in political life, condition the likelihood of external norm diffusion. In this vein, the variation in external normative impact can be expected to differ depending on how domestic actors engage with external norms and the extent to which those norms resonate with a specific culture or knowledge context.³⁷

Ruling elites as main shapers of domestic political discourses and actions are key local agents that play the role of “gatekeepers” in filtering external normative influences (Khakee in this special issue). By framing positively or negatively ideas coming from outside, they can facilitate or undermine the domestic spread of external normative claims (Khakee in this special issue; Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). This gatekeeping function may be narrowly motivated by short-term survival instincts but the ultimate driver for being on guard is the belief in the long-term power of norms in influencing societal political choices. We do not find evidence that authoritarian rulers consistently block external liberal influence and welcome external illiberal influence (Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). Similarly, alleged democratic ruling elites do not always wholeheartedly embrace external liberal norms and reject illiberal ideas (Khakee in this special issue). The alignment or misalignment of ruling elites with liberal or illiberal political norms needs to be examined in the specific context of local normative structures that condition the political strategies of these very actors.

While in some cases the contestation of external norms originates in the ruling elites intricately invested in the survival of the political regimes in place (Khakee in this special issue), in other cases contesters come from outside the state structures and represent views held by segments of the societies concerned (Weilandt in this special issue; Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). Those views are important as they signal the likelihood for societal acceptance or rejection of certain types of external influence. For example, Weilandt (in this special issue) finds that the EU democratic norms are contested at the heart of Tunisian society with some societal groups embracing while others discarding (elements of) the EU’s political example as a model to follow, with the outcome of societal disagreement on endorsing the liberal script forming a basis for the Tunisian polity. Similarly, Egyptian society, while initially divided in how it viewed the Turkish experiment with democracy based on combining democratic principles and Islamic traditions, has moved to a consensual rejection of any Turkish normative influence on the country’s political system (Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this SI). The overall EU democratic principles (rule of law, transparency and accountability, free and fair elections, individual freedoms, etc.) are largely accepted and enticed by societies in the eastern neighbourhood (Baltag and Burmester in this special issue). Yet, there are also societal groups that contest some specific EU norms, such as the treatment of sexual minorities, and show more receptiveness to Russia’s political messages on the issue (Delcour in this special issue). On the whole, we find that the societies surveyed are not homogenous in their attitudes to external political norms, whatever the content of the latter. This heterogeneity makes the domestic acceptance of both liberal and illiberal external influences a highly contested endeavour.

In this context, the domestic normative structures prove even more determining for the potential impact of external political norms. We encounter two distinct normative structures in the two neighbourhoods. In the east, we uncover the lingering effects of the “stubborn structures” linked to the Soviet legacy³⁸ – which is multi-faceted.³⁹ Scholars of post-communist transition have traced the durable effects of the communist-era policies and practices on three different levels – attitudes, institutions and behaviour. Attitudinal legacies have left an imprint on post-communist societies’ low levels of trust in political institutions and parties.⁴⁰ They have also had an impact on the lower levels of support for democracy and markets among the residents of post-communist countries in comparison to their Western counterparts.⁴¹ The communist-era institutional legacies are varied but have importantly influenced the degree to which societies are prone to self-mobilize in order to constrain elite behaviour through civic action.⁴² Behavioural legacies are also diverse but have particularly affected the elite’s propensity to resort to informal power and patronage networks, muddling formal and informal institutional mandates and power resources.⁴³ Our analysis shows that these inherited structures indeed stand in the way of liberal norm diffusion in the post-Soviet countries, but they also facilitate contemporary Russia’s normative outreach in these countries through the similarity of structures and practices on the ground going back to the communist period (Casier in this special issue; Baltag and Burmester in this special issue).

In the south, Islam as a system of relations between rulers and ruled plays a crucial role in defining the normative structures that underpin societal views of legitimate political authority. The religious identity and belonging to the Muslim ummah (nation) has always been a factor in political life, although to a varying degree in different Muslim societies and dependent on the contingent interplay between theological, historical, cultural, societal and political factors. Some views consider man-made rule unacceptable, because of the supremacy of God’s will and rules, but contemporary scholarship argues that democracy is at the core of governing in Islam, especially in terms of people’s choice of the ruler, majority rule, accountability and rule of law.⁴⁴ The latter line of enquiry focuses mostly on the structural/institutional elements of the concept, leaving aside the liberal aspects as these contradict the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence: the Holy Book (al-Quran), the Sunnah (the traditions or known practices of the Prophet Muhammad), Ijma’ (consensus), Qiyas (analogy) and Ijtihad (interpretation of arising problems or issues that are not precisely covered by the Quran or the Sunnah). Islamic jurisprudence teaches Muslims, in particular those in leadership positions, to make decisions on the basis of “shura” – a principle of consultation that can take the form of a referendum, a council or a parliament. In terms of minority rights, Islam protects non-Muslims living in Islamic countries and gives them the freedom to practice their faith freely. When it comes to elections, accountability, social justice and responsibility of rulers/governments, these principles are accepted as legitimate by the Islamic forms of governance. Even with respect to the issue of the rule of God versus the rule of the people, some Islamic scholars argue that it should not be seen as an insurmountable hindrance to democracy in Islamic states, since there cannot be any contradiction between the rule of the people and the rule of God.⁴⁵ What is contested, however, are some liberal values and freedoms that violate Islamic laws and traditions.

We find that domestic normative structures in both neighbourhoods are not inherently hostile to democracy. There is broad societal acceptance of the basic elements of electoral democracy such as universal suffrage, free and fair elections, plurality of political parties and accountability and good governance. Contestation occurs mostly with respect to the liberal principles that are essential to the Western democratic societies but appear unacceptable to important segments of the neighbourhood societies.

The encounter of external and domestic norms

When external political norms reach a domestic audience, they often encounter domestic contestation by local authorities and segments of domestic societies. This empirical reality goes against the classical study of norms centred around a dichotomous understanding of normative impact as norm adoption or norm rejection. The underlying assumption of this scholarship is a linear notion of norm adoption as a process that goes through stages and may begin with a strategic rhetorical commitment to norms but ends up with norm internalization and identity change. External agency plays a major role in these accounts. This line of inquiry has produced some of the classics in the field that have defined research on international socialization and norm adoption such as the “norm life cycle,”⁴⁶ the “boomerang pattern”⁴⁷ and the “norm diffusion spiral.”⁴⁸

This special issue takes a closer look at various contested scenarios where external political norms, both liberal and illiberal, meet with different levels of domestic reception – acceptance, rejection or modification. We are interested in understanding better the domestic processes that unfold in the encounter between external and domestic political norms and how this may lead to external norms undergoing adaptations as they become localized.⁴⁹ Much of the literature on norm contestation is focused on how contestation affects the robustness of the international norms concerned and the likelihood for normative change at the international level.⁵⁰ These studies emphasize that “the effects of contestation on norm robustness are conditioned by characteristics of norm challengers and norm defenders, by the nature of the contestation, and by features of norm institutionalization and embeddedness.”⁵¹ By contrast, we are interested in how local contestation of external norms affects the likelihood for normative change at the domestic level. More recent norms research has begun examining diffusion outcomes that defy a neat classification along the adopt-reject nexus and focus instead on situations where external norms become contested, reinterpreted, translated and inter alia modified to accommodate better the local normative context.⁵² The existing scholarship has, however, not considered comprehensively the effects of domestic norm contestation on norm diffusion.

Norm contestation research distinguishes between two main types of contestation – contestation of norm validity and contestation of norm application. The former questions the behavioural prescription contained in the norm whereas the latter objects to the application of the norm to a specific situation.⁵³ Contestation of norm validity is more categorical and rejects the obligation to conform to the standard of appropriateness proposed. Contestation of norm application, however, may open the door to engagement with the norm, not least to clarify its meaning and agree on the way of implementing it in a specific context. Because political norms are basic norms that hold a community together, they are likely to get contested in cross-national contexts when they travel to a different normative environment.⁵⁴ Different societies construct meanings about legitimate political order differently so there is a high probability that they will question either the validity of the external claims about legitimate political authority or the application of the external normative standards to the local political order, or both, and this is irrespective of the substance of the norms diffused.

Our conceptual treatment of norm contestation follows the broader definition of the manifestations of the phenomenon and examines contestation at the level of discourse, law and implementation. In this approach, we build upon Zimmermann’s conceptualization⁵⁵ of norm translation and aspire to offer a more fine-grained analysis of the interaction between external norms and local agency. In a domestic political context, the question about “who has access to contestation”⁵⁶ acquires a particular meaning owing to the nature of the polities that we focus on. In open and plural societies, we can expect a plethora of societal actors and elites to pronounce openly their position on various normative claims through discourse. In more closed societies with repressive regimes, we can expect societal actors to be largely silenced and ruling elites to take the centre stage in constructing the local narratives about external norms. Similarly, ruling elites have a key role to play when it comes to contestation through law (Khakee in this special issue). Conversely, at the level of implementation, societal actors acquire a leading position in contestation through social practice. We can also expect to observe multiple modes of contestation taking place in parallel depending on the specific context.

The societies in the two regions under investigation differ in terms of domestic norms and ideas about political life, which allows for a wide spectrum of possible outcomes as a result of the encounter with external norms – from acceptance to modification to outright rejection. We posit that different modes of domestic contestation (in discourse, law and implementation) lead to different levels of norm diffusion. Following Zimmermann,⁵⁷ we distinguish between norm acceptance, norm modification and norm rejection at the level of official discourse, law and implementation – see Table 1. We further specify that the type of domestic discursive contestation that external norms may encounter matters for diffusion outcomes. If domestic contestation concerns the validity of the norm, external norms are more likely to get rejected in the domestic setting. If domestic contestation affects the application of the norm to the local context, external norms are more likely to be modified as they are reinterpreted, translated and inter alia adapted to accommodate the local normative context.

Table 1. Political norm contestation and diffusion.

	Norm acceptance	Norm rejection	Norm modification
Discourse	No domestic contestation of either norm validity or norm application	Domestic contestation of norm validity	Domestic contestation of norm application
Law	Change of law/s	No change of law/s	Modified/localized law/s
Implementation	Change of practice in light of the norms accepted (unless capacity issues present)	No change of practice	Modified/localized practice

Adapted from Zimmermann (2016).

Various contributions to the special issue trace the domestic processes of contestation and diffusion in the case of specific norms or as a reaction to broader normative influences associated with different regional players in the two neighbourhoods. A few more general observations impose themselves based on the evidence provided by the case studies and broader observable regional trends.

As discussed in the different contributions to this special issue, the EU-inspired ideas about political life are in general less contested in the eastern than in the southern neighbourhood. The post-communist countries of the eastern neighbourhood have been part of the wave of pro-democracy enthusiasm after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the democratic script was embraced as a legitimate aspiration across the region. While the countries have had different experiences with democracy since then, rhetorically, the goal of moving away from the vestiges of totalitarianism and in the direction of democracy has been largely accepted by the societies in the region (Baltag and Burmester in this special issue). The discursive challenges to EU-styled democracy in the eastern neighbourhood are relatively few and recently dated. The most contested element of liberal democracy in the east concerns the protection of some individual rights, in particular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) rights, owing to a mix of socially conservative mores and attachment to traditional gender roles (Delcour in this special issue). Yet, the broader image of the EU as a model of democracy is largely accepted at societal level and rhetorically not challenged even at the elite level.

In the eastern neighbourhood, both local agency and local normative structures play important roles in creating formidable obstacles to adopting in law and implementing in practice the main principles of democracy. At the elite level, the main agents of contestation are political actors who profit from partial reform, aided by communist-era habits and behavioural patterns (Baltag and Burmester in this special issue). At the societal level, conservative values stay in the way of fully endorsing in law and respecting in practice some individual rights, most notably in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity (Delcour in this special issue). In this area, at best, partial acceptance or modification of EU norms could be expected.

As for Russia’s normative influence in setting political standards in the eastern neighbourhood, it is more recent and less accepted. Russia’s rhetorical emphasis on traditional values strikes a chord with some societal segments across the region (Casier in this special issue) but ultimately fails to entice the majority of the population in the eastern neighbourhood. This results in a patchwork of influences and a fluctuating flow of ideas emanating from both the EU and Russia.⁵⁸

In the southern neighbourhood, the EU liberal-democratic norms face different levels of contestation. Ruled by dictatorships with different levels of oppression (with the exception of Israel, Lebanon and Tunisia), MENA countries have had different experiences with democratic reforms. As in the eastern neighbourhood, the goal of moving away from dictatorship towards democracy has been shared by the societies in the MENA region regardless of their religiousness level, as revealed by opinion poll data.⁵⁹ While democracy is largely accepted at the societal level and rhetorically even at the elite level, the liberal aspect of Western democracy is highly contested in the MENA – especially when it comes to some individual rights, such as LGBTIQ rights.⁶⁰ At the societal level, these norms are rejected due to the strong attachment to traditions, culture and religion. At the elite level, a wider spectrum of democratic principles are contested in law and in implementation, even when they are accepted in discourse (Khakee in this special issue).

When it comes to other external actors’ influence in setting political standards in the southern neighbourhood, it is more recent, less accepted and more diverse. Turkey’s attempt to promote itself as a legitimate political model that combines Islamic traditions with democratic values after the Arab uprisings was short-lived and ultimately rejected by MENA societies and elites alike (Aydin-Duzgit and Dandashly in this special issue). Gulf countries (mainly Saudi Arabia) have been promoting their version of Islamic traditions via control of many regional media channels and programmes across the MENA. This approach has had some influence among more conservative segments of the societies, pushing them to adhere to the Saudi understanding of Islam and governing but it has failed to appeal to a wider part of the population in the southern neighbourhood (Weilandt in this special issue).

All in all, both in Eastern Europe and in the MENA region, there are no serious alternatives to democracy as a system of governance. The normative appeal of other regional players thrives mostly on contestation of certain aspects of the EU democratic model rather than on the projection of an alternative political blueprint. Local actors and local norms emerge as the main facilitators and obstructors for external influences and hold the key to determining which external norms can penetrate the domestic normative context. Political leaders in both neighbourhoods have good reasons to contest external norms when these threaten their power base but even when they are open to external normative influence, they cannot ignore local norms, societal demands for change or societal red lines for non-change. Ultimately, the domestic dynamic of local agency and structure is the most powerful predictor of whose political norms will gain more traction.

Conclusion

This special issue makes both a conceptual and an empirical contribution. Conceptually, we cross-fertilize two literatures – the scholarship on democratization/authoritarianism in Comparative Politics and the scholarship on norm diffusion/norm contestation in IR. First, we use insights from the norm contestation literature in IR to address a gap in the comparative study of democratization/authoritarianism. In so doing, we advance the debate on domestic enabling conditions and obstacles to political change in the scholarship on democratization/authoritarianism.

Second, we offer an avenue for dialogue between the scholarship on the international dimension of democratization and on the international dimension of authoritarian rule. The literature on the international dimension of political change has examined separately the impact of the policies of democratic and autocratic powers, neglecting the simultaneous influences of these powers on the domestic political trajectories of third countries. We take into account the contested nature of political ideas and the normative rivalry between Western and non-Western actors that increasingly define the domestic settings of many countries around the globe. In this way, we bridge the gap between the two scholarships and provide a more nuanced understanding of contemporary processes of norm diffusion.

Third, against the background and dominance of the rational choice explanations in the literature, we provide a different perspective by studying the soft influences of liberal and illiberal external actors on the prospects for political change. We hone in on the ideational dimension in the interaction between external and internal actors and normative structures and advance an argument that complements existing rational accounts.

Empirically, we concentrate on two regions that are usually studied separately – the former Soviet space and the Middle East and North Africa – and where Western and non-Western regional powers and daunting domestic conditions all intersect to form a plethora of interesting case studies ranging from consolidated authoritarian regimes to hybrid regimes and (young) democracies. By drawing cross-regional parallels, we bring new insights to the study of democratic transition and authoritarian resilience in the entire European neighbourhood.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Editors of Democratization and the anonymous reviewers for their highly valuable comments. We would also like to thank the contributors to the special issue for their feedback and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. Gergana Noutcheva would also like to acknowledge the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, project N 620443-EPP-1-2020-1-NL-EPPJMO-CHAIR. The usual disclaimers apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Gergana Noutcheva would also like to acknowledge the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, project N 620443-EPP-1-2020-1-NL-EPPJMO-CHAIR. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes on contributors

Assem Dandashly

Assem Dandashly is an Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department at Maastricht University. His research focuses on the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in terms of democracy promotion, minority rights and security in the MENA. His research has been published in edited volumes and international peer reviewed journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Democratization, International Spectator, and Mediterranean Politics.

Gergana Noutcheva

Gergana Noutcheva is an Associate Professor in International Relations and Jean Monnet Chair at the Political Science Department, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on the EU enlargement policy, the European Neighbourhood Policy and democratization in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the post-Soviet space. Her research has been published in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, West European Politics, East European Politics and Societies, Journal of European Integration, Democratization, International Spectator, and Geopolitics.

Notes

1 Fukuyama, The End of History.

2 In this special issue, we look at countries that are part of the European Neighbourhood Policy. In this vein, the eastern neighbourhood countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; while the MENA countries are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia.

3 Freyburg et al., “EU Promotion of Democratic Governance”; Sasse, “The European Neighbourhood Policy”; Schimmelfennig and Scholtz, “EU Democracy Promotion”; Weber, Smith, and Baun, Governing Europe’s Neighbourhood; Whitman and Wolff, The European Neighbourhood Policy.

4 Finkel, Pérez-Liñán, and Seligson, “The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance”; Huber, “US and EU Human Rights.”

5 Burnell and Schlumberger, “Promoting Democracy – Promoting Autocracy?”; Dandashly and Kourtelis, “Classifying the Implementation of the EU's Normative Power”; Risse and Babayan, “Democracy Promotion and the Challenges of Illiberal Regional Powers”; Tansey, “The Problem with Autocracy Promotion”; Von Soest, “Democracy Prevention.”

6 Börzel and Risse, “From Europeanisation to Diffusion”; Freyburg et al., “EU Promotion of Democratic Governance”; Lavenex and Schimmelfennig, Democracy Promotion in the EU’s Neighbourhood; Schimmelfennig and Scholtz, “EU Democracy Promotion”; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe.

7 Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash; Hassan, “Undermining the Transatlantic Democracy Agenda?”; Obydenkova and Libman, “Understanding the Survival of Post-Communist Corruption”; Tolstrup, “Studying a Negative External Actor”; Von Soest, “Democracy Prevention.”

8 Börzel and Risse, “From Europeanisation to Diffusion,” 383.

9 Von Soest, “Democracy Prevention.”

10 For an exception, see Noutcheva, “Whose Legitimacy?”

11 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread”; Jose, Norm Contestation; Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics; Zimmermann, “Same Same or Different?”

12 Official Journal of the European Union, “Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union.”

13 Meunier and Vachudova, “Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Illiberalism and the Potential Superpower.”

14 Youngs, The Puzzle of Non-Western Democracy.

15 European Commission, “A New and Ambitious European Neighbourhood Policy.”

16 Wetzel and Orbie, “Promoting Embedded Democracy?”; Wetzel and Orbie, The Substance of EU Democracy Promotion.

17 Kurki, “Democracy and Conceptual Contestability.”

18 Graham, “Liberalism and Democracy”; Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.”

19 Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy; Dahl, Democracy and its Critics; Huntington, The Third Wave.

20 Huntington, The Third Wave, 7.

21 Graham, “Liberalism and Democracy”; Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.”

22 Putnam, Making Democracy Work; Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition.

23 Graham, “Liberalism and Democracy.”

24 Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.”

25 Illiberal democracies are when “democratically elected regimes often re-elected or reinforced by referendums that ignore the constitutional limits of their power and deprive their citizens of basic rights and liberties.” Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” 22.

26 Dannreuther, “Russia and the Arab Spring.”

27 Curanović, The Religious Factor in Russia’s Foreign Policy.

28 Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine.

29 Gill, “A New Turn to Authoritarian Rule in Russia?”; Hassner, “Russia’s Transition to Autocracy.”

30 Youngs, “Democracy Promotion as External Governance?”

31 Al-Anani, “Islamist Parties Post-Arab Spring”; Behr, “EU Foreign Policy and Political Islam”; Chamkhi, “Neo-Islamism in the Post-Arab Spring”; Milton-Edwards, The Muslim Brotherhood.

32 For a discussion of Islamic jurisprudence, human rights, gender equality, and democracy in the context of Islam-West relations, see Rane, ISS 7 Islam and Contemporary Civilisation.

33 Gurowitz, “The Diffusion of International Norms”; Klotz, “Norms Reconstituting Interests”; Peterson, “Whalers, Cetologists, Environmentalists, and the International Management of Whaling”; Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights”; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights.

34 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread”; Checkel, “Norms, Institutions, and National Identity.”

35 Checkel, “Norms, Institutions, and National Identity.”

36 Wiener, “Contested Meanings of Norms”; Zimmermann, “More for Less.”

37 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread”; Jose, Norm Contestation; Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics.

38 Magyar and Madlovics, “Stubborn Structures.”

39 Slater and Wilson, The Legacy of the Soviet Union.

40 LaPorte and Lussier, “What Is the Leninist Legacy?”

41 Pop-Eleches and Tucker, Communism’s Shadow.

42 Grzymala-Busse and Luong, “Reconceptualizing the State.”

43 Magyar and Madlovics, “Stubborn Structures.”

44 al-Qaradawi, Min fiqh al-dawlah fī al-Islām; al-Qaradawi, "Islam and Democracy"; al-Raysuni, “Democracy from an Islamic Perspective.”

45 al-Qaradawi, “Islam and Democracy.”

46 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics.”

47 Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders.

48 Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights.

49 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread”; Zimmermann, “Same Same or Different?”

50 Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, “Things We Lost”; Wiener, “Contested Compliance.”

51 Sandholtz, “Norm Contestation, Robustness, and Replacement,” 139.

52 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread”; Zimmermann, “More for Less.”

53 Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, “Things We Lost.”

54 Wiener, Contestation and Constitution of Norms; Wiener, “Contested Meanings of Norms.”

55 Zimmermann, “Same Same or Different?”

56 Wiener, A Theory of Contestation.

57 Zimmermann, “Same Same or Different?”

58 Youngs, “The New Patchwork Politics.”

59 See opinion poll data collected by the Arab Barometer and the ArabTrans Project which find that a vast majority of MENA citizens believe in the supremacy of democracy as a system of governance and in the compatibility of democracy and religion. Arab Barometer, “Arab Barometer Wave V”; Arab Barometer, “Arab Barometer Wave VI”; Abbott and Teti, “Key Findings”; Teti and Abbott, “What Do ‘The People’ Want?”; see also Teti et al. “Beyond Elections.”

60 Dandashly, “The EU and LGBTI Activism.”