2026/04/01 by Álvaro Oleart, Tom Theuns · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics #European Union Policy and Governance #Human Rights and Development
paper · doi:10.1093/9780191996191.003.0004
openalex publication_date 2026/04/01 · openalex created_date 2026/04/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Abstract The European Union has the ambition—and the promise—of being a powerful actor for the promotion of democracy in the international arena, as European integration could serve as a model for the integration of democracies in other regions of the world. The EU is also a powerful actor in economic terms. This wealth could be used to support pro-democratic civil society actors and subsidize the costs of democratic transition. However, in spite of this discourse, rather than promoting democracy globally, the EU often undermines it. This chapter argues, first, that European foreign policy too often ignores Europe’s colonial legacies, undermining democratic values through paternalism and the lens of securitization. Second, the EU generally imposes a standard trade model on partner countries that undermines a democratic ethos whereby partner countries would be conceived as (potential) democratic partners who determine their own economic and trade policies. Third, the technocratic EU approach in the international arena has often empowered autocratic actors abroad. Fourth, rather than focusing mostly on the ‘rule of law’, the EU should focus on strengthening civil society internally and externally. We conclude with a wider perspective, suggesting moving away from what we conceptualize as the EU’s ‘Messiah complex’ towards a decolonial paradigm, oriented towards challenging the undemocratic global hierarchies of political power that maintain the EU in a structural position of dominance vis-à-vis the ‘Global South’.