"Democracy Promotion & the E.U., U.S. Formulas: Photo Opportunities or Potential Rivalries?"

Hussain, Imtiaz. (2007) "Democracy Promotion & the E.U., U.S. Formulas: Photo Opportunities or Potential Rivalries?". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2007 (10th), May 17-19, 2007, pages 40, Montreal, Canada.

Abstract

Why do we think more of the United States (US) than the European Union (EU) when we discuss Afghani or Iraqi democratization, and EU more than US when it is East European? Should not democratization be the same? A comparative study asks what democracy has historically meant in the two regions, how democratization has been spelled out, why instruments utilized differ, and where democracy lies in the broader global leadership context. Neither treats democracy as a vital interest, but differences abound: (a) While the US shifted from relative bottom-up to top-down democracy, the EU added bottom-up to its top-down approach; (b) the US interprets democracy as the ends of other policy interests, the EU treats it as the means to other goals; and (c) flexible US instruments contrast with rigid EU counterparts. Among the implications: (a) the 4-stage US approach has wider global reach than EU’s multi-dimensional counterpart, but EU’s regional approach sinks deeper than the US’s; (b) human rights find better EU than US anchors; (c) whereas the US approach makes intergovernmental actions the sine qua non of democratization, the EU admixture of intergovernmentalism, transnationalism, and supranationalism, adapts quid pro quo dynamics, promotes incremental growth, and broadens democracy; and (d) competitive democratization patterns creates lock-ins for both recipient and supplier countries.