The European Union’s Democracy Promotion: Main Strategies and Approaches

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has evolved as an international actor with democracy promotion agenda since the 1990s. The EU approaches to democracy promotion by transferring its norms, values, rules and standards to third countries especially through its enlargement and neighbourhood policies. This study considers the lack of conceptual and theoretical studies on the subject in Turkish literature. It discusses the content, instruments, methods and approaches of democracy promotion as a foreign policy phenomenon, and the reasons for external actors’ impact on other states’ democratisation processes. The models along with instruments and mechanisms used by the EU in democracy promotion are examined. Thus, it contributes to Turkish literature on the EU’s democracy promotion by drawing on the literature on democratisation and Europeanisation.