Contentious politics after popular uprising: Assessing how EU democracy promotion can help bottom-up actors achieve small scale democratic gains
Sarah Anne Rennick & Work Package 4 Team.
This Working Paper explores how popular uprisings influence democratisation processes and how the European Union’s Democracy Promotion (EUDP) supports involved bottom-up actors if democratic openings emerge in their aftermath. Based on a comparative analysis of 21 post-uprising episodes across nine countries in the EU’s neighbourhood, it examines how EUDP tools such as financial, diplomatic, and technical assistance interact with domestic institutions, power relations, and discursive dynamics to foster small-scale democratic gains. Using interviews, archival research, and event data, the study identifies six key mechanisms behind successful democratic outcomes: capital, formal bridges, technical alignment, constellation of power, quality of coalition, and civil society autonomy.
EMBRACE Working Paper 01