Suchergebnisse

The co-operation framework adopted in 2000 between the European Union and 77 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) identifies political dialogue and governance conditionality as the core strategies for promoting democracy and anchoring the rule of law in developing countries. However, the mechanisms for suspending aid on political grounds, originally introduced in 1995, remain largely understudied and unevaluated. This article sets out to review the policies and strategies of the European Community aimed at responding to the crisis of governance and preventing conflict. It explores the difficult combination of democracy assistance and governance conditionality to prevent democratic regression in politically fragile countries by reviewing the European Community's response to crises of governance in Niger, Haiti, Côte d'Ivoire and Fiji. It argues that, although offering appropriate responses to abrupt interruptions in democratization processes, traditional forms of political conditionality have proved largely inadequate for responding to the gradual corrosion of governance and the decay of democracy. Furthermore, conducting structured political dialogue puts further demands on the management of aid, as it converts foreign aid into a highly political endeavour. This article concludes with a set of proposals for enhancing the political coherence of EC political dialogue and governance conditionality. (Democratization - www.frankcass.com/DÜI)

"This book provides a comprehensive overview and explanation of the substance of the European Union's (EU) democracy promotion policy. With the promotion of democracy becoming an increasingly important element of European Union foreign policy, the contributors argue that the question of what is actually being promoted by the EU in third countries must come to the fore of academic and practical discussions. Dealing with the democratic agenda promoted by the EU, this collection focuses on elections, civil and political rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to govern, stateness, state administrative capacity, civil society, and socio-economic development as components of embedded liberal democracy. The conceptual part of the book includes an analytical framework and critical discussions from law, political economy, critical social theory and governance perspectives. The empirical part contains 11 chapters where the common analytical framework is applied to 22 country cases"--