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Democracy promotion / Working Paper

Promoting Democracy Backwards

17/11/2006 By Peter Burnell

The idea and practice of international democracy promotion has gained considerable attention over the last few years. There is now both a substantial multinational industry involved in promoting democracy abroad and a significant accumulation of scholarly studies examining the performance.

In the United States, President George W. Bush has given impetus to the cause of promoting freedom and democracy in the Middle East especially, as a major plank in his administration’s strategy for countering international terrorism.

In Europe, the effectiveness of the European Union’s application of democratic conditionalities (the so-called ‘Copenhagen criteria’) to accession candidates from post-communist Central and Eastern Europe has been widely acknowledged.

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Keywords

Civil society Conflict Democracy promotion European Union US

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Bio author: Peter Burnell

Peter Burnell is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He is founding editor of the international journal "Democratisation".