Democracy Promotion by Functional Cooperation The European Union and its Neighbourhood

“Book’s main aim is to establish an alternative view of how the EU tries to promote democracy in its neighbourhood: through functional cooperation that may lead to democratic governance in the partner country. … EU bureaucrats will read it with great pleasure, as it claims to not simply repeat the often-heard criticism of ‘EU failure’ and ‘EU loss of credibility’ in democracy promotion, but to draw a more nuanced picture of the success of EU democracy support in its neighbourhood.” (Jan Claudius Völkel, Democratization, Vol. 23 (5), August, 2016)

“Book’s main achievement is the construction of a comprehensive design, documented by empirical findings, to study the full democratising potential of the EU democratic governance model in three very different policy environments, stressing the main differences that arise in practice between the adoption phase and the implementation phase. … a valuable scholarly contribution that shows that, if we are to successfully re-examine EU democracy promotion at this time of crisis, we need to focus on sectoral policies and their local specificities.” (Miruna Troncota, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 68 (5), July, 2016)