Democratisating the Eastern Partnership in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities of Political Association Beyond the Language of Official Texts

Abstract

The Eastern Partnership is based on such core democratic values as the rule of law, respect for human rights, good governance, sound civil society and free media. One of the Partnership's key objectives is to increase the level of association with EU policies based on common values - such as the rule of law and respect for human rights - and eventually make the entire region more democratic and stable. The Association Agreement is seen as a special democratisation instrument for deeper association, however, without promising the EU membership. The question is whether or not the Partnership’s democratisation agenda has any impact on the actual state of democracy in this region. To answer this and other questions, the paper examines the language of the Partnership’s key official documents, along with the EU’s relevant development cooperation programmes. The goal is to find out (a) how friendly they are in terms of democratic rhetoric, (b) whether the democratisation potential of digital ICTs is taken into account and (c) whether there is a correlation between being a partner country and being democratic. The paper concludes that, overall, being merely a partner country is not sufficient for making democratic progress. It is the Association Agreement that prompts deeper democratisation. The current scope of the ongoing democratisation programmes is rather traditional and does not include the benefits of digital democracy to engage with ordinary citizens as key beneficiaries of democracy promotion initiatives. The field of democratic citizenship and political participation, where such benefits can be most strongly felt, is recommended for inclusion into such initiatives.