Project News

The 29th Scientific Congress of the German Political Science Association (DVPW), held at Georg-August University in Göttingen from 24 to 27 September 2024, featured a joint panel organized by the Horizon Europe sister projects EMBRACE, REDEMOS, and SHAPEDEM-EU, together with the newly initiated cousin project InvigoratEU (website will launch soon).

The panel tackled pressing issues surrounding the EU’s role in promoting democracy amidst the rise of authoritarianism worldwide and in its neighbourhood. The panelists explored the EU’s responses to challenges such as the war in Ukraine, the growing influence of autocratic regimes, and the implications for EU policies in its southern and eastern neighborhoods.

The discussions were based on findings of the participating research projects, offering a critical reflection on the EU’s democracy promotion efforts and proposing strategies for adapting its foreign relations and support mechanisms to the current challenges.

In her contribution, EMBRACE Coordinator Sonja Grimm (second from the right) highlighted factors that explain authoritarian resilience. She also reflected on potential obstacles to more successful democracy promotion on the side of the European Union.

From left to right: Jonas Wolf (discussant), Sergiu Buscaneau (Redemos), Funda Tekin (InvigoratEU), Andrea Gawrich (Shapedem-EU), Sonja Grimm (EMBRACE), Britta Weiffen (chair).

EMBRACE will participate at the German Political Science Association (GPSA) on 24-27 September 2024 with a panel on “The Future the EU’s Democracy Promotion – In Search for Innovative Tools and Appropriate Policies” at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. More information to follow.

Several EMBRACE partners participated in the annual CRS conference in Edinburgh, UK, where they presented their research insights at the interface between peacebuilding and democratization dynamics in the EU neighborhood (Work Package 6). EMBRACE coordinator Dr. Véronique Dudouet and her colleague Lara Azzam from Berghof Foundation presented a paper critically examining EU engagement in Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2019 mass uprising, and the missed opportunities to support a genuine civil-society led and reform agenda in the country.

During its General Assembly meeting of EMBRACE in the southern German city of Würzburg, the EMBRACE consortium organised a public roundtable to take stock of the EU’s roles and perceptions in the Middle East and North Africa, and their implications for EU foreign policy in the region. Panelists included Omar Shaban, Director of PalThink for Strategic Studies in Gaza, Sarah Rennick, Deputy Director of Arab Reform Initiative in Paris, and Saida Ounissi, former Minister and Member of Parliament in Tunisia. They discussed de-democratization trends in the Southern Mediterranean, the influence of EU actors and other geopolitical players in the region, and how political elites, civil society activists, and citizens across the region perceive EU policies. In addition to examining the impact of authoritarian backlash in Tunisia and Lebanon’s economic collapse, the conversation focused on the ongoing war in Israel-Palestine and the impact of the EU’s reaction on its credibility as a partner in the MENA region. In a unique platform for open exchange in a currently tense public climate around the topic, participants took the chance to t also prparticipants had the opportunity to share their thoughts and questions with the panelists.

The EMBRACE consortium met at University of Würzburg for its 3rd General Assembly meeting in order to discuss the progress of the ongoing work and jointly plan ahead into an eventful and exciting last project year. As most of the data collection is finalised, research-focused work packages shared status updates and first insights into their preliminary findings. In addition, the presence of all teams was used in order to jointly brainstorm the content of the upcoming interactive online platform that is being developed as a resource and webinar hub for relevant stakeholders. The consortium was joined in these efforts by two distinguished members of its Academic and Policy Advisory Board, Kate Fearon (OSCE) and Christoph Zürcher (University of Ottawa).

The first policy brief from the EMBRACE project, titled “Emerging Patterns of Blockages to Peace and Democratisation,” has been released by Sandra Pogodda and Oliver Richmond from the University of Manchester. This brief presents some results of Work Package 6 on blockages to peace and democracy, with contributions from colleagues at PalThink, Berghof Foundation, Arab Reform Initiative, Ghent University, and Nansen Dialogue Centre. It briefly some highlights critical research findings from fieldwork conducted in Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Armenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, including on the escalation of conflicts in the multipolar order, the undermining effects of stabilisation approaches on peace, and the interlinked blockages at the national level and within society. The policy brief offers concrete policy recommendations directed at the EU to address these challenges and promote sustainable democratisation and peace processes.

Read the Policy Brief here.

Sonja Grimm and Nea Solander from the University of Würzburg (JMU) and Karina Shyrokykh from the University of Stockholm (SU) presented three papers to the 2024 ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop“Supporting and Promoting Democracy in the European Union’s Neighbourhood” at Leuphana University Lüneburg. The workshop, organised by Tina Freyburg, University of St. Gallen, CH, and Theofanis Theofanis Exadaktylos, University of Surrey, UK focused on the challenges encountered by the EU in supporting democracy and democratic initiatives in its eastern and southern neighbourhood.

Among the discussed questions were:

• How effective are the EU’s strategies for democracy support towards the neighbourhood countries?
• Has the EU’s good governance agenda been instrumental in promoting democracy?
• How does the competition between other international players affect democratisation in the neighbourhood countries?
• What kind of a democracy is externally promoted, and what demand and support exists on the ground?
• What is the opportunity for grassroot emergence of democratic initiatives?

As an integration project dedicated to preserving peace among its Member States, the European Union has evolved over the past six decades into a community of like-minded members who share a host of fundamental values such as human rights, equality, freedom and the rule of law. Crucially, democracy is the necessary scaffolding for supporting the principles that guide all EU policies, and which Brussels seeks to promote both within and outside its borders. The EU’s external democracy support efforts have revolved around mechanisms such as accession conditionality and socialisation, underpinned by the transfer of values, norms and procedures across an expanding area of EU external action. But while the definitive prospect of membership provided strong incentives for democratisation to Central and Eastern European candidate countries, the challenges to democracy support in the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood proved more formidable.

These challenges can come in various ways:

• From the EU itself as the process of integration is continuing and as its own member states face democratic backsliding and erosion through the increase in right-wing populist party support;
• From the geopolitical location of the EU’s eastern and southern neighbours, considering the Great Power competition with Russia, China, the US and the sensitive relations in the Middle East;
• From the demand for democracy and support for democratisation processes within the countries of the eastern and southern neighbourhood.

Contributions to the workshop reflected on these challenges and their effects on the European Union’s democracy promotion.

The workshop was supported by the three Horizon Europe sister projects:

REDEMOS: Reconfiguring EU Democracy Support – Towards a sustained demos in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood

SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s Democracy Support in its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood

EMBRACE: Embracing Change: Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood.

EMBRACE’s project management team – consisting of Véronique Dudouet and Karin Göldner-Ebenthal from Berghof Foundation, Sonja Grimm from University of Würzburg and Timo Lowinger from Concentris – met for a project planning retreat in Berlin on 22-23 February 2024. The team discussed implementation plans for the second half of the project lifetime. In the next General Assembly meeting in July 2024, the data generated during fieldwork will be shared and analysed within the Work Packages, and across the country and regional teams. We also discussed the publication, dissemination and exploitation strategy, across academia, policy and activist communities – Watch out for all upcoming results!

We submitted our first Periodic Report for the EMBRACE project to the European Commission in November 2023. The review meeting was conducted with the project officer and external expert in January, and we are pleased with its positive outcomes! We look forward to building on the foundational year of EMBRACE, as we embark on our fieldwork and data collection phase.

Read our first newsletter here and sign up for the next ones here!

It is with deep sadness that we have learned about the passing of Mahmoud Alnaouq. He was killed in the shelling of Gaza, alongside his family, at the end of October. Mahmoud was a researcher at PalThink, an EMBRACE consortium partner. He worked to better understand the blockages to democracy in Palestine.

Omar Shaban, Director of Palthink, writes about his young colleague:

“In August, Mahmoud, 26 years old, travelled to Malaysia to participate in a conference representing PalThink. It was his first time ever to exit Gaza, it was his first time to be on a plane. At the end of September, Mahmoud received an acceptance letter from an Australian University for a master’s degree. Mahmoud’s ambition and dreams were without limit. This war kills people, kills hope, kills positive change makers, it kills everything that is beautiful.”

Our sincere condolences go to Mahmoud’s family, his friends and colleagues.

As the war continues, we are deeply concerned about our remaining project colleagues in Palestine and their families, as for all civilians killed, hurt, forced to flee their homes, and living in extremely precarious conditions.

Daniel Bochsler (FPN) contributed a paper on “The imaginary power of revisionist external powers: Even the belief by domestic actors that it might unravel peace will seed mistrust and lead to a spiral of escalation” at the Serbian Political Science Association Annual Conference in Belgrade.

EMBRACE organised a panel at the annual conference of the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies, “Social Movement and Peace Research in Dialogue”, on 5-6 October, co-organised by the INTERACT Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research at the Free University Berlin. Consortium members Véronique Dudouet and Lara Azzam (Berghof Foundation), Sarah Rennick (ARI), Laura Luciani (Gent University) and Sandra Pogodda (University of Manchester) presented some of their conceptual research and early fieldwork data, reflecting critically on international peace interventions and grassroots social mobilisation in Armenia, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia.

Sonja Grimm, Scientific Lead of EMBRACE (University of Würzburg) presented her research on the EU’s approach in the European neighbourhood and the influence of authoritarian powers therein at a conference organised by the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Cluster of Excellence at the Free University Berlin, SCRIPTS, in Brussels.

EMBRACE pursues an inclusive approach to the research and established a total of 7 stakeholder committees. Of these, 6 are in the regions under study (see news items/LINK) and one is formed by stakeholders from EU institutions. Reaching out to the stakeholders in the EU bodies working towards making the EU a more wise and efficient partner to those trying to enhance their democracies in the European Neighbourhood is elemental to ensure that our research is responding to a need and will benefit their work. Hence, a series of online meetings were conducted by Berghof and UKON with a variety of EU stakeholders from the European External Action Service, the EU Commission and attached institutions which either a regional of thematic focus. During the meetings the stakeholders appreciated the project’s aims and acknowledged the research gaps and needs. Of particular interest was the project’s potential to draw a big picture of EU democracy support, covering a total of 23 cases with 12 in-depth cases from 5 neighbourhood regions – a perspective that is hard to achieve from within. On the question what kind of blockages to democratization the EU stakeholders encountered in their work with local partners, participants highlighted particularly the difficult media landscape, mistrust and lack of cooperative political culture, as well as an unequal playing ground between civil society and established elites, or among parties in opposition and in government. In a follow-up during year two of EMBRACE’s project duration, the stakeholder committee will be presented with preliminary analysis to allow their perspective to feed back into the research once more.

Check out our Videos! We produced more than 20 video clips during our methodology workshop in Konstanz, in April 2024, to offer some insights to the project. The introductory video provides a short overview of the aims and approach of the project. In addition, thematic videos offer dedicated insights to specific themes such as the ambitions of EU democracy promotion and its reality, the link between peace and democracy, geopolitics, and the role of culture in democracy promotion. Two videos highlight the challenges of conducting research in authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe and in Northern Africa. Also check out the short statements of our researchers and what they like about EMBRACE!

EMBRACE partners Sarah Rennick from ARI and Wicke van den Broek from Maastricht University were representing our project at the 10^th European Workshop in International Studies of the European International Studies Association, together with our sister projects SHAPEDEM-EU and REDEMOS.

The EMBRACE consortium’s Theory Framework presents the conceptual underpinnings of our overall enquiry on blockages to democratisation and strategies to overcome them. It reviews existing approaches to the study of political closure, which can be explained through constellations of behavioural, institutional and structural blockages that are both endogenous and exogenous to domestic political systems. This framework lays the foundations for analysing blockages to democratisation in the European neighbourhood, which the European Union’s Democracy Promotion (EUDP) policy needs to account for. Based on this theoretical model, the project investigates the effects of EUDP on levels of democracy while accounting for various constellations of blockages in the five sub-regions. Likewise, the Theory Framework conceptualises a comprehensive approach to overcoming blockages through democratic opening, and suggests possible explanatory factors, including relevant actor constellations and structural factors conducive to political change. Read more here.

On 26 June, Maastricht University hosted the first online Stakeholder Committee meeting for the case study of Belarus. The Stakeholders present at the meeting are members from Civil Society organizations, which are connected with and committed to a democratic future for Belarus. During the meeting, the researchers from Maastricht University presented the theoretical framework of the planned research and draft interview questions. The feedback from the Stakeholders provides a bottom-up approach which ensures the research will both be grounded in theory and in local reality. The issue of gender and LGBT rights in Belarus was raised during the discussions, as well as the importance of bottom-up actors, the choice of local partners by the EU and what constitutes successful promotion of democracy both by civil society and by the EU.

The meeting started with a 30-minute presentation of the overall structure, aims, and objectives of the Embrace project, with the emphasis on four working packages (WP) where cases from the Western Balkans are represented. The discussion of 90 minutes followed. Participants focused mostly on the planned fieldwork and general dynamics of relations between the EU and the Western Balkan countries, while the discussion of the theoretical framework was largely present only implicitly. One participant (academic background), for example, raised a concern that the concept of “modernization”, which is in the title of the WP5, is not a useful way to theorize the economic reforms undertaken in the period of renewed competitive authoritarianism in Serbia after 2012.
Participants whose work is directly related with the EU accession process, either from the side of the Serbian government or the EU delegation in the country, emphasized in their discussion that considering the long time-span of various episodes of interest in the Western Balkan cases it will be important for the researchers to stay cognizant of the internal changes within the EU and how these have affected the EU policies in the region over the last two decades. Several participants (stakeholders with active political engagement) have also touched on the issue of Kosovo-Serbia relations that is not directly covered in neither of the WPs but crucially shapes the geopolitical dynamics of the whole region.
Commenting on the fieldwork plans, the participants shared a number of valuable observations about particular case study episodes. Some stakeholders from the civil society sector particularly welcomed the inclusion of workers mobilization as one of the case study episodes, commenting how socio-economic inequalities affect the lived experience of democratic citizenship even when formal institutions of democracy are in place. However, a stakeholder with past government experience was skeptical about the real political significance of the episodes of worker mobilization. The participant from the Northern Macedonia highlighted the importance of studying internal workings of political parties during the fieldwork, even for the episodes that are primarily concerned with the civil society actors. Few participants (civil society and IR backgund) have also made their suggestions about possible case study episodes from Bosnia and Herzegovina that could be included in the WP6 where Bosna figures a country case, but no particular episodes have been selected yet.
All participants have also expressed their readiness to stay engaged with the project, to keep supporting the researchers with their insights and by sharing their contacts, as well as by taking part in the stakeholder meetings planned for the later stages of the project. Our team has already had a meeting with a stakeholder who could not make it to the group session on June 6th, as well as email exchange with a number of participants to follow up on some specific contacts or ideas that were mentioned in the meeting.

In June, ARI invited civil society stakeholders to attend a meeting for the EMBRACE project. The purpose of the meeting was to present the objectives and research activities of EMBRACE, and more specifically the work that will be carried out on Tunisia, and to obtain the stakeholder’s feedback. In addition, the meeting was convened to reflect on the European Union’s response – or lack of response – to Tunisia’s authoritarian drift and the role the EU could play in improving the state of politics in Tunisia today. 11 partners participated in the online meeting, including independent researchers, NGOs and universities.
After ARI presented the project, its aim, activities and research methods, the participants reflected in an open discussion the research and the EU’s role in Tunisia. Themes discussed included the limits imposed on Tunisian opposition actors by the governing regime, the EU’s collaboration with a regime that is democratically backsliding, the role and impact of immigration on EU decision-making and the perceived choice between stability and democratic developments. Further points raised were the general concept of democracy and how it is perceived in Tunisia as well as Tunisian political culture and traditions and how they may influence attitudes to democracy and political participation. The comments and suggestions will be incorporated into the research plan and activities.

Within the framework of the Horizon Europe project “Embracing change: Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood” the first stakeholder committee meeting of the Ukraine research team took place in the online format on June 20, 2023. During the meeting Dr. Oksana Holovko-Havrysheva, UESA President presented the main objectives and tasks of the project as well as the role of the UESA in the project realization, especially focusing on the fieldwork and research to be conducted within the WP4, WP6 and WP 7. Dr. Dmytro Koval, leading researcher in the WP4 presented the research methodology on popular uprisings and democracy shifts in Ukraine; Dr. Tetiana Kyseliova addressed the main features of the WP 6 dealing with peace and war linkage to the democracy shifts and Prof. Roman Petrov focused on geopolitics of the EUDP covering the impact of superpowers on the democratization processes in Ukraine before the war and in the wartime. The participants commented on the content and methodology of the forthcoming fieldwork within the relevant work packages.

The EMBRACE stakeholder committee meeting for the South Caucasus took place on June 19, 2023, in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was held in a hybrid format at Ilia State University and via Zoom. The meeting was a joint effort of Ghent University and Ilia State University. The committee attendees consisted of civil society, media, and academia representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
The meeting was divided into two parts. In the first part, the research team presented the EMBRACE project, including the research aims and objectives, design, methodology, and fieldwork plans. During the second part, the committee members provided feedback to the research team. In particular, the participants commented on case selection and other methodological or ethical aspects of the research. All the participants expressed willingness to support the research process and contribute to reviewing its outcomes.
The EMBRACE (Embracing change: Overcoming obstacles and advancing democracy in the European Neighbourhood) is a Horizon Europe project that aims at analysing blockages to democratisation, identifies ways to overcome them, and suggests new policy tools to improve the European Union’s democracy promotion (EUDP) in the European neighbourhood. The project was launched in October 2022.

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies Holds the First Stakeholder Committee Meeting in Gaza City, occupied Palestinian Territory Pal-Think for Strategic Studies recently conducted its first stakeholder committee meeting as part of the project titled “Embracing Change: Overcoming Obstacles and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighborhood,” which is funded by the European Union. The meeting took place at Pal-Think’s office in Gaza City and virtually. It was attended by 12 individuals representing Palestinian society, civil society organizations, and youth. The primary focus of the meeting was on the democratization efforts in Palestine, exploring the factors that hinder or facilitate the progress in this regard. Through discussions, it was emphasized that the absence of democracy has exacerbated the socio-economic and eco-political situation in Palestine, underscoring the significance of establishing democratic institutions and fostering a democratic atmosphere for a sustainable future.

Pal-Think aims to contribute to the examination of obstacles to democratization and identify strategies to overcome them. Additionally, it will take into account the historical, geographical, cultural, and eco-political contexts in its research. These stakeholder meetings serve the purpose of updating stakeholders on the EMBRACE project and engaging in and reflecting on discussions about the most effective practices and methods to promote democracy in Palestine.

The consortium of the EU-funded research project EMBRACE (EMBRAcing ChangE: Overcoming obstacles and advancing democracy in the European Neighbourhood) gathered at the end of April in Konstanz for the Methodology Workshop. As a kick-off to the event, a public Roundtable on the future prospects for the EU’s eastern partnership led to lively discussion between the speakers from Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, and Germany (Karina Shyrokykh, Stockholm University; Nebojša Vladisavljević, University of Belgrade; Olga Shparaga, Institut for Human Sciences, Austria; Dirk Leuffen and Sonja Grimm, both Konstanz University). During the Workshop, the overarching methodology of the project was presented by Sonja Grimm as scientific lead, while the leads of the five thematic workpackages presented their methodologies. Rich discussions and feedback by colleagues and members of the external advisory board (including Christoph Zürcher, Anke Höffler, Anja Osei, Olga Shparaga, Julia Leininger and Kate Fearon) in the plenary and small group sessions were the excellent result of the 2-day workshop. The revised Theory Framework paper will shortly be public and available on our project website: https://embrace-democracy.eu/ Follow us also on Twitter @EU_EMBRACE

We have developed both the “Stakeholder Map (D7.1) as well as the “Dissemination & Communication Plan” (D7.2), two major deliverables of WP7 that identify the project’s stakeholders and outline a detailed strategy, tasks, responsibilities, and release dates for internal communication, dissemination towards specific target groups, and training activities for the duration of the project. The deliverable reports are confidential, but available for download from the intranet for EMBRACE members.

EMBRACE successfully kicked off in form of an online meeting on 17 March 2021. Consortium members outlined the work ahead over the next 12 months, elected the Impact Board (IB), made first decisions, and incorporated valuable feedback from the scientific and ethical advisory board (SEAB).