Democracy Promotion in Afghanistan : The top-down or bottom-up approaches of EU or US

Democracy promotion is a key objective in both US and EU foreign development policy. The study attempts to provide a better understanding of both actors democracy promotion in Afghanistan. The US and the EU are perceived to have different approaches regarding democracy promotion. Therefor the study examines if US used top-down and EU bottom-up approaches respective coercive and persuasive methods. Approaches used by actors are examined in the study regarding democracy promotion in the case of Afghanistan. It is a case study with qualitative text analysis and the theories used are top-down and bottom up channels of democracy, and persuasive and stick methods. The survey has looked at the both actors’ commitment in Afghanistan during period of 2001-2014. The result shows that the US and EU have more similarities than differences in the case of Afghanistan and actors have combined both top-down and bottom-approaches in promotion of democracy and focused on cooperation and partnership.