On the EDP wire, we post and discuss a range of issues that emanate from our research and that are important to us. Here you will find – in English or German – opinion pieces, book reviews, conference reports, and important announcements. Are you interested in becoming a guest contributor? Get in contact with us!
Most Recent EDP WIRE Posts
In this EDP Wire contribution, Jeff Bridoux discusses the demise of international democracy promotion. He argues that the two main actors of democracy promotion, the EU and the United States, have to bear part of the blame due to rising nationalism and waning interest in external democracy promotion.
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This EDP wire contribution presents a conference report on the 3rd Bridging Gaps Conference that took place from November 10th – 11th 2017 at the University of Erfurt. The conference shed light on the topic “Threats to Liberal Democracies” and aimed to provide future policy makers with a platform to exchange ideas and discuss policies among like-minded peers.
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More and more countries restrict how NGOs operate, often by limiting their funding. The response is frequently to argue that these restrictions flout international law or amount to crackdowns on the opposition. Annika and Jonas argue that the objections to NGO activity need to be taken seriously.
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This EDP wire contribution presents a review of Simone Beetz’ 2017 empirical analysis on “External Democracy Promotion and Diversity Among International Agencies – Evaluating Variances in the Impact of the UNDP and the EC in Rwanda”.
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The last state to join the European Union was Croatia in 2013, but when can current candidate states expect to secure their accession to the EU? Tina Freyburg and Tobias Böhmelt present results from a new study of the capacity of candidate states to meet accession criteria.
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In this EDP wire contribution, Nick discusses the Trump administration’s linking of democracy support to the pursuit of US security goals and the potential damage this could do the fledgling efforts at a collective democracy-building.
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The Armenian government is sending mixed signals to Brussels by joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in 2014 and proposing an Anti- NGO Law in 2015. As Armenia and the EU commenced policies under the umbrella of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2006, this provided the EU with the possibility to more cautiously control the democratizations processes in Armenia. However, as of the time of writing, the EU seems to not have any influence on developments on the ground.
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This EDP wire contribution presents an excerpt from Dr. Daniel Warner’s article “Democracy Promotion from 1989 to Vladimir Putin’s 2015 UN Speech: The Interrelationship of Democracy and Democracy Promotion”.
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In this extract from her recent article from ORIENT, Annika puts recent US democracy promotion policy towards Egypt in the larger perspective of US foreign policy towards the MENA region.
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A critical NGO receives a letter from the tax office, indicating that its public-benefit status has been revoked on the grounds of its involvement in political activities. After a court has reviewed and closed the case in favor of the NGO, the central government intervenes, insisting that the judgment should be reviewed.
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