Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2012

The Arab Spring and the EU Democracy Promotion Efforts: Between Intentions and Perceptions.

Since the end of the year 2010, political unrest and demands for democratization in the Arab region have been spelled out after years of political and socio-economic stagnation. Such demands have fundamentally altered the socio-economic and political outlook of the region and its relations with the EU.

Since its emergence on the global stage, the EU has been often described as “a normative power" as its political discourse has been focused on promoting norms and values beyond its borders. An empirical look at the patterns of implementation of this normative political discourse has revealed a gap between rhetoric/discourse and practice.

The Arab Spring, in some ways, has been a visible failure of the EU projection in the region, as it did not have any role in shaping, or at least, orienting what happened in that region. It was thus quite understandable why, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the EU has been keen to set the deepening of Arab reforms as a key objective of its development cooperation policy towards the region. This has been reflected in the series of incentive – based policy initiatives proposed by the EU for supporting Arab reforms.

Despite its efforts to foster genuine partnerships with its neighborhood, many voices have called for a paradigm shift in the EU approach to democracy support beyond its bureaucratic frameworks which - in some cases- proved as being ineffectual.

In this respect, the workshop aims at examining two broad research topics; the Arab Spring as a composite phenomenon; main drivers and future implications as well as the EU democracy support approach towards the Arab Spring.

More information on the workshop contents and objectives: http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/RobertSchumanCentre/Research/InternationalTransnationalRelations/MediterraneanProgramme/MRM/MRM2013/ws05.aspx

KEY DATES

The deadline for submitting the paper proposal: 15 September 2012 More details on the selection process:
http://www.eui.eu/Documents/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/MRM2013/CallforPapersMRM2013.pdf Communication of acceptance by : 1 October 2012
Final version of the paper due by: 15 February 2013
The papers should be sent directly to the workshop directors

Workshop directors and contacts:
Nesreen K. El Molla, Cairo University, Egypt: nelmolla@hotmail.com Dario Cristiani, King's College London, United Kingdom – Global Governance Institute , Belgium:dario.cristiani@kcl.ac.uk