Bulletin n. 1/2017
June 2017
INDICE
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
  • Felipe Gómez Isa
    EU promotion of deep democracy in Egypt after the Arab spring: A missed opportunity?
    in Revista Electrónica de Estudios Internacionales , Número 33 ,  2017
    Egypt is an important strategic country for the EU. Since the inception of the Barcelona process in the mid-1990s, the EU has provided extensive economic and political support to the Mubarak authoritarian regime that supposedly offered security, stability, and economic opportunities to Europe, irrespective of the lack of significant progress in the area of human rights and democracy. The popular uprisings that led to the Arab Spring in 2011 revealed the limitations, contradictions, and short-termism of this approach. The EU was caught by surprise, and initially was hesitant as to which side to support. Once the revolution succeeded, the EU turned into a major supporter of the democratic process. The EU announced a paradigm shift in its relations with the Southern Mediterranean, a new partnership based in sustainable and inclusive growth, a greater role for civil society, and a renewed emphasis in human rights and democratic transformation. The main innovation of the EU’s new approach to the region was the concept of deep democracy, a new term that generated high expectations. The core objective of our analysis is to explore to what extent EU policies towards Egypt have been influenced by the supposedly new paradigm developed by the EU through the concept of deep democracy. As this article has demonstrated, most changes in EU policies towards the Southern Mediterranean, particularly the reviewed ENP, are essentially rhetoric, since they do not substantially modify the traditionally top-down and business-oriented approach that has dominated these relations.
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