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.