The EU's Democracy, Human Rights and Resilience Discourse and Its Contestation

MEDRESET Work Package 4 (WP4) aims at evaluating the effectiveness of EU policies on democracy promotion and human rights in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEM) region from the perspective of bottom-up actors’ interests, needs, perceptions and expectations, both at the local and the EU level, with the purpose of identifying inclusive, responsive and flexible policy actions to reinvigorate Euro-Mediterranean relations. This paper will firstly provide a background analysis for WP4, based on a critical review of the discourses of the EU and other key international and regional players, discursive positions of civil society actors (including at this stage only documents produced by civil society networks which span the Mediterranean) and the academic discourse. The second part will give an introductory overview on the central role played by civil society in the Arab uprisings and beyond, while the third part will outline the analytical and methodological indications that will inform research and fieldwork in this WP.