The EU’s role as a promoter of human rights and democracy: enlargement policy practice and role formation

This chapter addresses a specific role of the EU in international politics: its role as a promoter of human rights and democracy. It focuses on the origins of this role conception and identifies one particular pathway to create new roles for the EU in international politics, namely as a – partly unintended – consequence of collective policy practice in its external relations. I argue that one distinct source, or driving force, behind this role is the process of eastern enlargement. The EU’s policy practice – its enlargement policy and the related discourse – contributed to the formation of this specific role of the EU.