Assessing dynamics of EU democracy projection through expert communities in the Mediterranean region

ABSTRACT

Although the EU promoting democracy and providing democracy assistance as an international actor is abundantly analysed; EU democracy projection remains relatively under-researched. Applying analytical approach of current Special Issue, this article assesses dynamics of transversal democracy projection between the EU and Mediterranean region through the lens of Euro-Mediterranean expert communities. Unlike a number of specific policy-related studies, we take a broader regional approach as our main aim is to demonstrate that Euro-Mediterranean expert communities are agents of transversal democracy projection through practicing internationally accepted norms and values in different contexts including policy level. The foundations of this article rest on an EU funded project involving empirical field research conducted in 2018 covering a total of 205 individual field interviews, focus group meetings, and online surveys. Syntheses of our results indicate that interactions between Euro-Mediterranean expert communities enhance scope of policy making in the Mediterranean region and support transversal democracy projection. The way democracy is projected through these expert communities’ everyday practices in specific local contexts in the Mediterranean currently requires new modalities of engagement with policy makers, empowering their scope for transversal democracy projection in the region further; and the same is also true for the EU.

KEYWORDS:

• Democratization
• transversal democracy projection
• expert communities
• civil society
• legitimacy
• policy-making
• European Union
• Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Anna Khakee and Sarah Wolf for valuable and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. We extend our thanks to two anonymous referees for constructive and helpful comments on previous version of this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. For detailed theoretical considerations see Introduction by Khakee & Wolf in this Special Issue. We have avoided repeating theoretical discussion here, instead focused on research results.

2. ‘Think tanks operate in a variety of political systems, engage in policy-related activities, comprise a diverse set of institutions with varied organizational forms; all perform the same basic function – bringing knowledge and expertise to bear on the policy-making process’ (McGann & Lazarou, 2019, p. 6).

3. The field work methodology and data are synthesized in a report by LaGro (2018), including individual interviews, focus group meetings and online survey results.

4. See Introduction by Khakee & Wolf in this Special Issue.

5. For information on the priority areas of Euro-Med Partnership see UfM website, available at https://ufmsecretariat.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ENG_Follow-Up-of-the-Roadmap-WEB.pdf accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

6. EuroMeSCo consistently ranks among the top 10 think tank networks in the world in the Global Go-To Think Tank Index Report of the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019 rankings, it is declared as the 7^th Best Think Tank Network of the World. More information is available at https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=think_tanks accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

7. For example; political economy of the regional issues.

8. See relevant publication available at https://www.euromesco.net/publication/the-eu-tunisia-privileged-partnership-what-next/accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

9. See relevant information available at https://www.femise.org/en/conferences-and-seminars/registration-open-femise-annual-conference-brussels-belgium-june-13th-14th-2019/accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

10. See relevant publication information available at https://emnes.org/publications/accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

11. See CEPS website for more information, available at https://www.ceps.eu/ceps-events/towards-a-regional-integration-and-employment-driven-socioeconomic-model-in-the-mediterranean-a-comprehensive-policy-roadmap/accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.

12. See further information available at https://www.euromesco.net/event/cooperation-with-religious-institutions-as-a-european-policy-tool-2/accessed most recently on 1 December 2020.