PROBLEM STATEMENT

Democracy as a form of government became "the only reliable foundation on

which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built” (Diamond,

1995, p.9). For diverse reasons, international actors promote democracy outside their

borders. In the last decades, democracy promotion became a new commodity of

international actors foreign policy agenda. However, democracy promotion is not a new

concept, it has been used centuries ago when ancient Athens pushed for democracy on

her allied states (Huber, 2009).

The European Union (EU) faces several concerns that forced it to restructure its

foreign policy in the Eastern and Southern EU neighborhood. The concerns mainly are,

immigration issues, regional security, energy security and religious extremism (Pearce,

2007). EU endorses a democracy promotion policy as a way to overcome those concerns

(Pearce, 2007). In the last 10 years, the EU used European Neighborhood Policy (ENP)

as its main instrument for democracy promotion in their neighboring countries . ENP was

created to achieve the goal of a EU-neighborhood populated by peaceful countries, which

preferably share EU values (Johansson-Nogués, 2004).

As the most popular Southern Mediterranean EU neighboring country, Euromed

Survey places Egypt as a key power in the geopolitical redesign of the Mediterranean

(IEMed, 2013). This could be due to several factors: Egypt reside in a strategic position

as a land-bridge between two continents and a link between two principal waterways, the

Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Whereby, significant amount of Oil, gas and

22% of all the world’s container traffic goes through the Egyptian Suez Canal or through

pipelines across Egypt which connect Egypt directly to European economy and energy

security. Egypt is an opinion leader for much of the Arab countries and moreover it had

an influence on African and Muslim counties, where by Egypt position matter to EU in

international organizations. Egyptian has the strongest military power in the Arab world,

where by it contribute to Middle eastern and Mediterranean stability and security. Egypt

has a history of raising a history of raising of religious extremism, whereby it can export

terrorism to the neighboring EU and harm its security. So, If Egypt goes into turbulence,

the prices of many commodities would be disturbed across the EU, Mediterranean and

European security will be affected, EU energy security will be impacted and the Middle

East peace process will be troubled. All these factors contribute to the geopolitical

importance of Egypt and made it a country of interest to the international actors

especially the EU. European Union has been engaged in promoting democracy in Egypt

for the last two decades, on one hand by several partnership programs that give

conditional incentives to the government for applying democracy and on the other hand

by support the procedures of democracy by activities like election monitoring missions.

In 2011, democratic movements went to a new level and major events happened

in the political and social climate in Egypt. Egyptians took part in huge demonstrations to

call for a democratic transition of political power. As a result, longtime president

Mubarak had to step down. The following period was characterized by a series of

constitutional changes, legislation changes, consecutive referendums and elections in a

very rapid and complicated manner. The response of the EU was fast and clear: EU

officials and member states representatives have voiced support to democratization and

offer to help in its process to realize a consolidated democracy in Egypt. However, it is

not clear whether EU democracy promotion policy has been responsive enough to the

rapid changes taking place in the country.

Several studies investigate the development of democracy promotion policy of the

EU in similar transition periods in the recent history. However, due to the proximity of

the events, there are limited studies that address the changes of the EU democracy

promotion policy in Egypt after the events of 2011. This study addresses this gap by an

attempt to investigate the changes in the European Union democracy promotion policy in

Egypt after the events of 2011. This attempt raise several questions such as, what was the

EU democracy promotion policy before 2011, what is the importance of democracy

promotion in Egypt to the EU, what is the type of democracy promoted in Egypt by the

EU, what is the strategies and activities used by the EU to promote democracy in Egypt,

what changes had occurred on these domains (if any) after the events of 2011, and finally

what is the effect of local events on EU democracy promotion policy?.

This study takes a an analytical case study comparative approach, to examine the

change in European Union democracy promotion policy toward Egypt, juxtaposing

European Union democracy promotion policies in Egypt at different points of transition

including the period from 2004 until January 2011 and multiple points in the transition

period from January 2011until the 2014th presidential election results announcement at

June 2014. The study builds on content analysis of EU documents in the form of bilateral

agreements, reports, diplomatic statements, strategic papers, cooperation projects, action

plans issued by the European Union covering the study subject in the study periods.

Furthermore, the study will build on several in-depth interviews with a variety of

European Union policy stockholders to voice their perspectives on the changes of the

European Union democracy promotion policy toward Egypt.

The study applies an agency oriented model of foreign policy analysis. This

model was proposed to introduce the idea that discourses construct the reality (Tomic,

2013). Tomic build the model based on both discourse analysis (Tian & Dijk, 2011) and

discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008). The model is designed especially to analysis

EU foreign policy as an international none state actor using EU discourses and its

context.

The results of the study will highlight the role of external actors in promoting

democracy in countries of interest as those actors spend considerable time and financial

resources to encourage countries along their path to democracy. Thus, research is needed

to ensure that these efforts yield positive contribution to the transition to democracy and

also they are well understood by targeted groups. Moreover, the study will provide in-

depth analysis of the European Union democracy promotion policy in Egypt and its

changes over the study period in reflection to the local context. Such information will

shed light on the factors affecting the EU policies and will help clarifying the motives,

strategies and action of EU in intervening in democracy matters of Egypt which is

necessary for both sides, inside EU to justify the actions and spending, and inside Egypt

to justify the intervention. The study will analyze the diverse stakeholders shaping EU

democracy promotion policy and their contribution to the final policy outcome. The

findings of this research can be helpful for better crafting new democracy promotion

policies not only in Egypt but also in similar situations of transitions to democracy.

Finally, the study will seek to verify the responsiveness of these policies to the rapid

changes involved in democratic transitions similar to the case of Egypt. Such an attempt

will help EU policy maker to assess their responsiveness toward changing political

climates in the neighborhood.

The study is organized is five sections. Section I: Introduction which include:

statement of the problem, background information about what is democracy, establishing

democracy as an international norm, what is democracy promotion, why to promote

democracy, why EU added democracy promotion to its foreign policy agenda, strategies

generally used to promote democracy and EU democracy promotion strategies. Section

II, the literature review which explain the theoretical framework of democracy promotion

and the historical development of EU democracy promotion in the last decade as present

in the literature. Section III, the methodology which explain the research methods used in

the study and why it was selected. Section IV, the analysis which illustrate the analysis of

the document of the EU and the results of the interviews. Section V, the conclusion and

recommendations.