The United States and European Union democracy promotion: From Euro-Mediterranean partnership to uprisings in north of Africa and Middle East (2011)

The spread of democratic values ​​in the international system (IS) is a constituent of the foreign policies of both US and the European Union (EU). The US promotion of democracy has a greater historical existence (early twentieth century) while held by the EU starting in the year 1990. However, the promotion of democracy by the US cannot be disassociated from its hegemony, especially after the Second World War landmark that reflects their position as the leading capitalist bloc. Remember that international organizations created in the post-1945 - as the United Nations and the Bretton Woods - are institutionalization of a power structure in which the US held a prominent role, culminating in its hegemonic status. In neogramscian perspective, the hegemony of state in the international system is based on three elements: material power (economic), the creation of international organizations in the IS and the promotion of ideas (ideology). The literature, however, lacks a consensus on the US hegemonic position in post-Cold War world. At the same time, Europe is in the final moment of his integrative process of its transformation into the EU through the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. However, the promotion of democracy the EU starts within its enlargement policy for candidate countries joining the bloc. In 1995, the EU creates the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) that was configured as promoting democracy in countries of North Africa and the Middle East (MENA).  Therefore a comparative analysis of democracy promotion by the EU since the creation of the EMP (1995) until 2011 with the US promotion, in that same historical period would allow the characterization of the power polarization in the IS, since democracy is political idea and can be defined as one of the vital elements for the status of a hegemonic state, according to the theoretical framework used.