Porcelain Publishing / SPR / Volume 7 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.47297/wspsprwWSP2515-471010.20230702
ARTICLE

Neighbour policy and Democracy Index: an analysis of the EU's  impact on democratization in North Africa

Kaiyi Zhang1
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1 Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Dalian Liaoning 116000, P. R. China
© Invalid date by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The European Union(EU) has long promoted the democratization of  North African countries through the European Neighbourhood Policy  (ENP), which provides economic assistance. However, as the political  consequences of the "democratic regression"that take place in North  Africa, the role of the ENP in promoting the democratization of North  African countries has been questioned. This paper analyzes the link  between the ENP and the political situation in North Africa based on the  changes in the Democracy Index of five North African countries from  2010-2022, as compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit(EIU), and  assesses its effectiveness. As a result, although the EU has contributed to  the democratization process in North Africa in some areas through the  ENP, the contradiction between its interests and its ideas has made it less  and less effective in practice and undermined the EU's reputation among  North African populations.

Keywords
European neighborhood policy
European Union
North Africa
Democracy index
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Social Policy Review, Electronic ISSN: 2753-5231 Print ISSN: 2515-4710, Published by Porcelain Publishing