The Double-Edged Sword of Democracy
How Democracy-Promotion is used in the European Union's Prevention of Terrorism in the Southern Mediterranean
Abstract
Terrorism is a horror haunting the world. Different approaches are used to fight terrorism internationally, focusing on security- as well as social-policy. In policy, the European Union poses democracy-promotion as one social-policy approach to prevent terrorism. Democracy is supposed to create resilient societies, resistant to terrorism. However, research on whether democracy prevents terrorism is inconclusive. Indeed, insufficient democratisation may spur terrorism and, unless wisely handled, prevention of terrorism might instead cause it. To unravel how the EU uses democracy-promotion to prevent terrorism in the southern Mediterranean is therefore crucial.
Based on interviews with EU-representatives, this article concludes that the EU’s external action does not reflect the policy-documents’ focus on democracy-promotion in preventing terrorism. While respondents regard democracy-promotion as important in preventing terrorism, it is not prioritised. Instead, terrorism-prevention is largely securitised, following the lead of Mediterranean partner-states. Such securitisation coupled with insufficient democratisation risk causing instead of preventing terrorism.
References
Abbas, Tahrir. 2018. “Implementing ‘Prevent’ in countering violent extremism in the UK: A left-realist critique”. Critical Social. Policy, 39, 396–412.
Alizada, Nazifa, Martin Lundstedt, Kelly Morrison, Yuko Sato, Vanessa A. Boese, and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2022. Case for Democracy: Conference Report. University of Gothenburg: V-Dem Institute.
Aly, Anne, Anne-Marie Balbi, and Carmen Jacques. 2015. “Rethinking countering violent extremism: implementing the role of civil society”. Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter-terrorism, 10 (3): pp. 3-13.
Bakker, Edwin. 2015. “EU Counter-radicalization Policies: A Comprehensive and Consistent Approach?”. Intelligence and National Security, 30: 2-3.
Cherney, Adrian. 2016. “Designing and implementing programmes to tackle radicalization and violent extremism: lessons from criminology”. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 9:1-3, 82-94.
Council of the European Union. 2005a. The European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy. Brussels, 30 November, 2005. 14469/4/p5. Rev 4.
Council of the European Union. 2005b. The European Union Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism. 24 November 2005, 14781/1/05.
Council of the European Union. 2014. Revised EU Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism. Brussels, 19 May, 2014.
Council of the European Union. 2017. “Directive (EU) 2017/541 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2017 on combating terrorism and replacing Council Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA and amending Council Decision 2005/671/JHA”. Official Journal of the European Union. 31.3.2017.
Council of the European Union. 2020. Council Conclusions on EU External Action on Preventing and Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism. Brussels, 16 June 2020 (OR. en) 8868/20
Council of the European Union. 2021. Council conclusions on a renewed Partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood - A new agenda for the Mediterranean. Brussels, 19 April 2021 (OR. en) 7931/21
Dandashly, Assem. 2018. “EU democracy promotion and the dominance of the security–stability nexus”. Mediterranean Politics 23 (1): 62–82.
Durac, Vincent. 2018. “Counterterrorism and democracy: EU policy in the Middle East and North Africa after the uprisings”. Mediterranean Politics, 23:1.
European Commission. 2020. A Counter-Terrorism Agenda for the EU: Anticipate, Prevent, Protect, Respond. Brussels, 9.12.2020 COM(2020) 795 final.
European Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. 2015. Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Brussels, 18.11.2015 JOIN(2015) 50 final.
European Council. 2007. Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community. Lisbon, 13 December 2007.
European Union. 2016. Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe. A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security-policy. June, 2016.
Feddes, Allard R, and Marcello Gallucci. 2015 & 2016. “A Literature Review on Methodology used in Evaluating effects of Preventive and De-radicalisation Interventions”. Journal for Deradicalization, Winter 15/16, nr 5.
Gaibulloev, Khusrav, James A. Piazza, and Todd Sandler. 2017. “Regime Types and Terrorism”. International Organisation, 71.
Jacobs, Matthew D. 2017. ”A ‘Paradigm of Prevention:’ United States Counterterrorism Strategies in a Transnational World”. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy. Edited by Scott Nicholas Romaniuk, Francis Grice, Daniela Irrera and Stewart Webb. London: Palgrave Macmillan
Jonasson, Ann-Kristin. 2013. The European Union and its Mediterranean Neighbours. Orientation, Ownership and Dialogue in Jordan and Turkey. London: Routledge.
Kaunert Christian, and Sarah Léonard. 2021. “Collective securitization and crisification of EU policy change: two decades of EU counterterrorism policy”. Global Affairs, 7:5, 687–693.
Kessels, Eelco, and Christina Nemr. 2016. Countering Violent Extremism and Development Assistance: Identifying Synergies, Obstacles, and Opportunities. Washington: Global Center on Cooperative Security.
Khakee Anna, and Sarah Wolff. 2021. “EU democracy projection in the Southern Mediterranean a practice analysis”. Mediterranean Politics.
MacKenzie, Alex and Christian Kaunert. 2021. “Still the absent friend? The European Union’s global counter-terrorism role after twenty years”. Global Affairs, 7:5, 615-630.
Magen, Amichai. 2018. “Fighting Terrorism: The Democracy Advantage”. Journal of Democracy, 29.
Matchett, William R. 2017. “Terrorism and Counterterrorism: The Criticality of Context”. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy. Edited by Scott Nicholas Romaniuk, Francis Grice, Daniela Irrera and Stewart Webb. London: Palgrave Macmillan
Mattsson, Christer, and Roger Säljö. 2018. “Violent Extremism, National Security and Prevention. Institutional Discourses and their Implications for Schooling”. British Journal of Educational Studies, 66:1, 109-125.
Monar, Jörg. 2015. “The EU as an International Counter-terrorism Actor: Progress and Constraints”.
Nalbandov, Robert. 2017. “Evaluating the ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ of Counterterrorism. Policy and Practice”. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy. Edited by Scott Nicholas Romaniuk, Francis Grice, Daniela Irrera and Stewart Webb. London: Palgrave Macmillan
O’Donnell, Aislinn. 2016. “Securitisation, Counterterrorism and the Silencing of Dissent: The Educational Implications of Prevent”. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64:1, 53-76.
Pace, Michelle. 2011. “Liberal or social democracy? Aspect dawning in the EU’s democracy promotion agenda in the Middle East”. The International Journal of Human Rights, 15:6.
Petrova, Irina, and Laure Delcour. 2020. “From principle to practice? The resilience–local ownership nexus in the EU Eastern Partnership policy”. Contemporary Security Policy, 41:2, 336-360.
Ranstorp, Magnus. 2016. “The Root Causes of Violent Extremism”. RAN Issue paper, 04/01/2016.
Schumacher, Michael J., and Peter J. Schraeder, 2021. “Does Domestic Political Instability Foster Terrorism? Global Evidence for the Arab Spring Era (2011-2014)”. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44:3, 198-222.
Skoczylis, Joshua. 2017. “Counterterrorism and Society: The Contradiction of the Surveillance State – Understanding the Relationship Among Communities, State Authorities, and Society”. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy. Edited by Scott Nicholas Romaniuk, Francis Grice, Daniela Irrera and Stewart Webb. London: Palgrave Macmillan
Sjøen, Martin M. 2020. When counterterrorism enters the curriculum: Exploring risks and practices of the securitisation of education. Ph. D. diss. University of Stavanger. UiS, no. 524.
Smith, Benjamin K., Michael Stohl and Musa al-Gharbi. 2019. “Discourses on countering violent extremism: the strategic interplay between fear and security after 9/11”. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 12:1, 151-168.
Stephens, William, Stijn Sieckelinck, and Hans Boutellier. 2021. “Preventing Violent Extremism: A Review of the Literature”. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44:4, 346-361.
Taylor, Joel David. 2020. “‘Suspect Categories,’ Alienation and Counterterrorism: Critically Assessing PREVENT in the UK”. Terrorism and Political Violence, 32:4, 851-873.
Tocci, Nathalie. 2020. “Resilience and the role of the European Union in the world”. Contemporary Security Policy, 41:2, 176-194.
Turley, Anna. 2009. Stronger Together – A new approach to preventing violent extremism. New Local Government Network, August 2009.
Wolff, Sarah. 2017. “The External Dimension of the European Union’s Internal Security”. International relations and the European Union. Edited by Christopher Hill, Michael Smith, and Sophie Vanhoonacker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media.
The published articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). It is allowed to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided and it is indicated if changes were made. / The published articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA). It is allowed to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided, it is indicated if changes were made and the new work is distributed under the same license as the original.
Users are required to provide full bibliographic description of the original publication (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages), as well as its DOI code. In electronic publishing, users are also required to link the content with both the original article published in Journal of Regional Security and the licence used.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted to deposit author’s pre-print / author’s post-print (accepted version) / publisher's version (PDF) of their work in an institutional repository, subject-based repository, author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), and/or departmental website prior or during the submission process / at any time after the acceptance of the manuscript / at any time after publication.
Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.