Ideas and Interests: European Democracy Aid and the Democracy-Security Dilemma, 1990-2010

Authors : James M Scott, Brandy Jolliff Scott

Pages : 61-81

Doi:10.20991/allazimuth.541235

View : 14 | Download : 13

Publication Date : 2019-12-20

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Since the end of the Cold War, advanced democracies have enacted explicit strategies of democracy promotion by providing assistance to governments, political parties, and other non-governmental groups and organizations all over the world. This paper examines the factors shaping European Union democracy aid allocation decisions from 1990-2010, weighing the relative impact of ideational concerns insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(regime type, human rights); and self-interests insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(political, security, economic);. We argue that EU democracy aid reflects a “democracy-security dilemma” as the EU balances ideational reasons for promoting democracy with concerns over political and economic relationships, regional stability, and security. We test our hypotheses with a series of random effects, generalized least squares and Heckman selection models, which provide support for our argument. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the impact and explanation of EU democracy promotion policies.
Keywords : democracy aid, foreign policy, European Union