Promoting democracy

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to bring clarity to why the European Union promotes the democratic norm in external relationships, specifically in the European Neighbourhood Policy. To study norm diffusion in external contracts of the European Union the analytical framework of this thesis consists of a descriptive- and explanatory idea analysis. The perspectives used to identify how the promotion of democracy is done, what reasons the European Union has for promoting democracy and the critics, are norm diffusion- and postcolonial theory. The results of the analysis show that democracy is promoted trough the characteristics of the linkage- and leverage models, that the reasons for promoting democracy are that European Union is to be perceived as a normative power Europe, universalism, unstable and poor partner states and the threat of authoritarian states. Lastly the critics that the analysis present consist of that the relationship between the norm taker and the norm giver is asymmetrical, that the European Union is blinded by exceptionalism, that the norm diffusion is rushed and the lack of reflection on how and what context the norms are diffused to. The result presents components of norm diffusion that can be used in other, similar normative relationships.