The Special Issue “Mapping Democracy and its Trajectories in EU-MENA Relations” is a Paper Series published by the EST’s Observatory on EU-MENA Relations. 30 years since the Barcelona Declaration (1995) – which had marked the beginning of a new interregional dialogue based on peace, prosperity and democracy – the Observatory—together with the editorial team of the European Student ThinkTank (EST)—presents its second Special Issue. This Issue seeks to shed light on the state of democracy in the Wider Mediterranean – here understood as a policy and societal space rather than a geographical area – and understand how democracy and its various components have evolved and developed in the relations between the EU and countries of the region. By combining inside-out with outside-in approaches, this work refuses and counters the depiction of democracy as a one-way, power-based process. In so doing, this Issue addresses questions of democracy, human rights, and good governance and aims to capture their complexities across the two shores of the Mediterranean in a time of democratic fatigue and disillusion at a national, regional, and global level..

Download Special Issue Volume 2 Issue 1 HERE!