ABSTRACT
Analogous to the previous chapter, the aim of Chapter 6 is to verify whether manifestations of the observed “democratic identity” of the EU can be found in primary guiding documents that formulate programs and policies of democracy assistance. In other words, can we find manifestations of the European “statist tradition,” welfare state and socialism in the conceptualizations of democracy in the guiding documents? A qualitative content analysis of dozens of strategic documents is performed to find how the democratic identity translates into practice and how the differences and nuances between the US and EU democratic identity shape the practice and induce practitioners to adopt varying approaches. The documents analyzed range from the initial period when democracy assistance programs were formally created by EU institutions (late 1980s) until the post “Arab Spring” period (c.2015).
