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Home > SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s democracy support in its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood

SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s democracy support in its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood [1]

SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s democracy support in its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood

2022 - 2025

SHAPEDEM-EU sets out to rethink, reshape, and review the EU’s democracy support policies in its Eastern & Southern Neighbourhoods. Amidst the increasing contestation of the EU and the weakening impact of its policies in the Neighbourhoods, SHAPEDEM-EU applies an entirely novel approach to democracy support. The approach conceives of democracy support as a social practice requiring the collective democratic learning of all stakeholders involved.

SHAPEDEM-EU represents a multi-national and multifaceted research consortium of academic, think tank, and civil society institutions based in the EU and the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhoods. The consortium will apply mixed-methods to collect, assess, and generate policies related to democracy support in the six case countries of Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia. We will investigate the role of EU member states, key EU institutions, third country actors, and international organisations. The project results will lead to improved EU practices in the region.

In all project phases, the impact of gender equality & digital transformations in democracy support will be examined. The findings will be communicated and disseminated through SHAPEDEM-EU’s comprehensive Democracy Support Database and an online Digital Dashboard. Our results will contribute to the creation of sustainable tools for an EU policy toolkit that supports democracy in its Southern & Eastern Neighbourhoods, thus increasing the EU’s accountability, transparency, effectiveness, and trustworthiness and making neighbourhood countries more resilient, equitable, and responsive to local needs .

Funding: European Union – Horizon Europe

External links

Project website [2]
Georgia’s Youth Protests Call for an EU Policy Rethink, by Nona Mikhelidze (Strategic Europe Commentary, 14/05/2024) [3]
Podcast: The Realities of EU Democracy Support, by N.Mikhelidze & ML.Fantappiè (Democracy Support Dialogues 4, 15/05/2024) [4]

Researchers

Researchers:
Nona Mikhelidze [5]
Maria Luisa Fantappiè [6]
Akram Ezzamouri [7]
Giulia Daga [8]

Source URL:https://www.iai.it/en/ricerche/shapedem-eu

Links
[1] https://www.iai.it/en/ricerche/shapedem-eu [2] https://shapedem-eu.eu [3] https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2024/05/georgias-youth-protests-call-for-an-eu-policy-rethink [4] https://www.buzzsprout.com/2304083/episodes/15072828 [5] https://www.iai.it/en/persone/nona-mikhelidze [6] https://www.iai.it/en/persone/maria-luisa-fantappie [7] https://www.iai.it/en/persone/akram-ezzamouri [8] https://www.iai.it/en/persone/giulia-daga