This is a study within the research on democratization. The research undertaken has paid attention to the nature of the democratization process. There has been an interest particularly in understanding the factors favorable to democratization. These factors have primarily been domestic-oriented. However, states and state politics are not independent of international relations and international politics. This has more recently been acknowledged, leading to a growing body of literature on the subject of international factors in democratization. Unfortunately, the number of studies has been limited, lacking a theoretical conceptualization of international factors. The result has been a growing gap between theory and empirical reality.
The overall mission of this study is to develop new theoretical insight on the favorable factors for democratization. The identified international factors are democracy diffusion and democracy promotion. Democracy diffusion refers to the spontaneous spread of democratic ideas. Democracy promotion refers, on the other hand, to an active prodemocratic policy.
The theoretical contribution is the presented analytical framework of democracy promotion. The empirical contribution is the illustration of the EU as democracy promoter in postcommunist Europe. The EU has become a regional and global policy-maker and democracy promoter. However, the EU is also a norm-community consisting of democratic member states and with an institutionalized policy of democracy preservation.