About this Book

"Commissioning external reports that they then deliberately ignore, holding a political party fair at which participating youth end up celebrating the King, organising a 'score for democracy' football cup which is won by the Ministry for Political Development, holding graduation ceremonies at which participating students celebrate 'their commitment to democracy', mobilising voters for an utterly toothless parliament, teaching students proposal writing skills so they can secure funds from the regime's own 'democracy promotion' initiative, assisting in the privatisation of public goods and linking the resulting socio- economic problems to the deficient 'nature of Jordanians', establishing a military training centre in which affluent customers learn how to best use a shotgun and hide in a fake refugee camp; the world of 'democracy promotion' is both full of contradictions and highly diverse, with activities spanning from institutional engineering, election observation and civil society support to the promotion of certain economic and security frameworks. While the existing body of literature on 'democracy promotion' is indeed vast, an in-depth study of what 'democracy promoters' actually do when they promote democracy is still lacking. Instead of discussing the intentions of 'democracy promoters', their theoretical assumptions, and supposedly universally valid models of democratisation, this book will first and foremost discuss what US and European 'democracy promoters' actually do when they promote democracy"--