The public forum took place in the framework of a Jean Monnet Information and Research Activity on the substance of the European Union’s (EU) international democracy promotion policy (see www.eu-ipods.eu). The organizers were Ghent University and the MZES/University of Mannheim, in collaboration with the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) at Brussels. The forum aimed to disseminate the findings of an academic research project on the content of EU international democracy promotion to a broader audience of civil society representatives, the professional field including EU institutions, and the general public, including people from target countries. It addressed the EU’s understanding of democracy in democracy promotion and the democratic substance that the EU promotes in practice through four sessions dealing with (I) the question whether the EU has a ‘deep’ or ‘shallow’ agenda of democracy promotion, (II) the potential tensions between EU development and democracy promotion policies, (III) the comparison between the EU and other international democracy promoters, and (IV) the resonance of EU democracy promotion policies in the domestic context of the target countries. Recent developments, such as the Arab Spring, and their implications for the content of democracy promotion were discussed throughout.
