FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16, 2006

Last week at the G-8 summit, the major European countries joined the United States in signing onto a major framework initiative to support political reform in the region.  But how committed in practice are European governments to promoting Arab democracy and human rights?  A new paper from the Middle East Political Reform Initiative of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Europe’s Uncertain Pursuit of Middle East Reform, by British democracy promotion expert Richard Youngs, seeks to answer that question. Access the Carnegie Paper at www.carnegieendowment.org/democracy.

Youngs contrasts the European approach to supporting Middle East political reform to the current American one.  He likens the European approach to a “third way” between assertive regime change and undimmed support for autocrats, with a strong emphasis on gradualism and partnership.  European governments avoid the language of democracy promotion per se and seek indirect forms of supporting reform, for example through economic reform measures and programs to foster good governance and civil society development.

Youngs finds that Europe’s gradualistic approach has some strengths, especially its ability to draw a cooperative response from Arab governmental partners, but constantly risks lapsing into irresolution and ineffectiveness.  He offers concrete suggestions to strengthen Europe’s approach, based on his extensive research and experience with democracy promotion methods.

Europe’s Uncertain Pursuit of Middle East Reform is the latest publication in the Middle East Series from the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Political Reform Initiative (MEPRI). The full series is available at www.carnegieendowment.org/mepripubs. MEPRI offers analysis and practical experience on whether and how political reform could occur in the Arab world and what the United States and other external actors can do to encourage such change.

Richard Youngs is an EU Marie Curie research fellow and is coordinating the Civility Project on Middle East reform run by the Foreign Policy Centre in London. He is the author of The European Union and the Promotion of Democracy and International Democracy and the West (2004 forthcoming).