Insider Amplification on the European Neighborhood (Neighbourhood) Policy

I truly wish Herb Peters were here to discuss this. I just made a fascinating online discovery of "Democracy Digest." It appears to contain insider information on the processes Herb and I were analyzing over the years. There has been considerable comment section talk about The European Neighbourhood Policy and possible prophetic ramifications. The following excerpted material from the Democracy Digest may shed further light on that and USA collaboration in "the Process."

"Democracy Promotion: EU-US Variations on a Theme
"Democracy promotion has never been a top foreign policy priority for the United States or European Union, but there is considerable scope for enhancing EU-US interaction in the field, according to a recent meeting of experts. Leading scholars and practitioners from both the US and Europe met for far-reaching discussion about the transatlantic dimensions of democratisation on October 4th and 5th [2004] at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
"Signs of ferment within the societies and cultures of the broader Middle East have
imparted new vigour to such discussions within the transatlantic community about
what can and should be done to assist democrats in that region and elsewhere.
While the US has been engaged in democracy promotion since 1945, the EU's
engagement in the field is a recent post-Cold War phenomenon, the conference
heard.
But differing transatlantic concepts and instruments of democracy
promotion between the EU and US are due less to historical factors than to
varying geo-strategic needs, capacities and perceptions of threat, seminar
participants suggested. "The EU's military weakness and the pressing need to
engage its troubled periphery have prompted the EU to develop a common approach
or orientation based on concepts and instruments nurtured through EU
enlargement," says Amichai Magen, a CDDRL Fellow who with Yitzhak Rabin, a
Fulbright Scholar at Stanford Law School, initiated and organized the workshop.
The EU makes extensive use of positive “democratic conditionality” through two
main rewards to non-members: institutional ties (the strongest of which is the
promise of full membership); and financial and technical assistance to ease
transition to market economies, enhance administrative capacity and facilitate
subscription to liberal norms.
"Stanford conference participants discussed variations of US-EU interaction in the field. Firstly, greater “co-ordination” of US and EU institutional and delivery capabilities would help avoid divisive tactics used by countries such as Cuba, Russia and many Arab regimes that are eager to minimize external democratising influences. A second school of thought prefers “collaboration” to a tight co-ordination of policies they consider unrealistic, undesirable, or both. Collaboration generates greater participation by non-state actors that are better positioned to engage than national or international bureaucracies. Thirdly, “co-operation” can also involve flexible case-by-case interaction, avoiding overt or institutional EU-US association.
"The wide-ranging reforms (from economic liberalization to human rights'
compliance) required for countries even to be considered for EU membership have
provided a compelling imperative for democratisation along the EU's volatile
periphery. In this respect, the conference heard, the EU has become a “democratic
hub” or “gravity” model using normative pressures, trade, aid, democratic
conditionality and socialization mechanisms to promote reforms. The EU has been
less willing to use negative measures – i.e. withdrawal of aid and sanctions.
"Until political criteria governing eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Account were established, the US traditionally did not use ex ante conditionality.
By contrast, expert American commentators at Stanford could not define a similarly coherent “American strategy.” US democracy promotion activities were described as more fragmented, sporadic and heterogeneous, partly reflecting the diversity of
agencies involved. They also tend to be more narrowly defined (on elections,
institutions, civil society) compared with the EU's more holistic, consistent
and long-term strategy of building long-term relationships and generating
gradual, controlled change through “managed-compliance.” Nevertheless,
participants considered joint strategies for advancing mutually reinforcing
changes to be a potentially rich area for exploration.
"Participants identified four distinct regime types that present different challenges for the US and EU. In both “opening regimes” and “hybrid-regimes,” a major challenge is one of consolidation and preventing backsliding and the entrenchment of
illiberal democracy. Conditionality and aid have been effective in such cases,
as in most of post-communist central and eastern Europe. But they have been less
successful in a second regime type: those states and international protectorates
characterized by weak institutions and administrative capacities, as in Serbia
(including Kosovo), Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and Romania, where ruling elites
are attracted by external incentives but lack the judicial and administrative
capacity to effectively implement reform.
"China is probably the most important current example of a fourth regime type -- a “pre-transition” non-democratic country. But in geo-political terms the North African and eastern Mediterranean countries are a critical cluster, given the combination of strong US interests and European engagement through the Barcelona Process and European Neighbourhood Policy. Finally, a “hard core” of states, including Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, pose particularly complex and divisive challenges for the EU and US.
"Some European participants suggested that EU leverage in such societies requires distancing itself from a US that has become “radioactive,” especially in the Middle East. Others suggested that long before either the Iraq war or the Bush Administration, the EU, and especially France, already sought to define themselves in opposition to the US.
"Participants agreed that both the US and EU need to review, reconsider and
perhaps redesign their own institutional instruments and procedures for
democracy promotion. A project that identifies specific places or themes for
cooperation, as well as places where the EU and US should avoid open
competition, would clearly be of interest and use to democracy promoters on both
sides of the Atlantic.

If past experience is any guide, I suggest you archive this material together with all of its links immediately. I also point with interest Stanford University's role in this. Together with New York University, and the Brookings Institution, it appears to be a major player on both New Age and "Global Governance" networks.

Stay tuned!