Professor Tobias SCHUMACHER, Chairholder of the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe, just published a chapter entitled "The European Union and Democracy Promotion. Readjusting to the Arab Spring", in Larbi SADIKI (ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring. Rethinking Democracy, Oxon, Routledge, 2015, pp. 559-573.
The chapter provides an overview of the EU’s response to the outbreak of the Arab Spring and Arab uprisings and discusses whether the EU’s newfound rhetoric is matched by substantial changes in its democracy promotion policies and democracy promotion commitment towards the countries of the southern neighbourhood during the period of 2011 to 2013. It argues that the EU was quick in engaging in a declaratory approach and presenting a new neighbourhood strategy with the publication, on 8 March 2011, of a joint communication under the promising title "Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean" – that is, less than two months after the fall of Tunisian President Ben ALI. Nevertheless, neither this approach nor this strategy, nor the subsequently adopted "New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood", with which the latter converged, has made EU democracy promotion policies in its southern neighbourhood more effective.
A description of this authoritative handbook and its chapters can be found here.