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African Affairs 97:343-367 (1998)
© The Royal African Society

EUROPE AND THE PROMOTION OF DEMOCRACY IN POST COLD WAR AFRICA: HOW SERIOUS IS EUROPE AND FOR WHAT REASON?

Dr. GORM RYE OLSEN, senior research fellow

Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen

The ending of the Cold War brought new topics on the agenda of the international aid donors. Questions of democracy and human rights were voiced with rising intensity not least by the European Union and by individual European countries. However, when it came to implementing the ambitious principles, both the EU and the bilateral donors lacked a ‘serious’ commitment. This is indicated by European policies towards South Africa, Kenya, Niger and Algeria. The policies of the Europeans towards Africa in the 1990s have primarily been influenced by security concerns and thus by the narrow national interests of individual donors. This is particularly manifest in the case of France which has a dominating position within the development cooperation of the EU. Thus, only in very few exceptional instances is it in the national interest of European donor states to promote moral issues such as democracy and respect for human rights. In the 1990s such themes have become little more than the rhetoric of politicians and treaties, just as it was during the Cold War.


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