This book explains why the EU is not a ‘normative actor’ in the Southern Mediterranean, and how and why EU democracy promotion fails. Drawing on a combination of discourse analysis of EU policy documents and evidence from opinion polls showing ‘what the people want’, the book shows EU policy fails because the EU promotes a conception of democracy which people do not share. Likewise, the EU’s strategies for economic development are misconceived because they do not reflect the people’s preferences for greater social justice and reducing inequalities. This double failure highlights a paradox of EU democracy promotion: while nominally emancipatory, it de facto undermines the very transitions to democracy and inclusive development it aims to pursue.

Andrea Teti is Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, UK, and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Security and Governance.

Pamela Abbott is Director of the Centre for Global Development and a professor in the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen, UK.

Valeria Talbot is Senior Research Fellow and Co-Head of the MENA Centre at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, Milan, Italy.

Paolo Maggiolini is Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy.