Co-operation ? on What Grounds? An Assessment of the Democracy Work within the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa´s Development (NEPAD)

The study field of the thesis is regional integration in Africa. The focus is set on the African Union (AU) and its main programme for promoting democracy on the continent, the New Partnership for Africa´s Development (NEPAD). By applying two theories, one on democratization through regional organizations and the other on hidden agendas within them, the thesis makes an assessment on the work for democracy in the two initiatives. The first analysis shows that within both the AU and NEPAD there exists a discrepancy between rhetoric and reality. It is stated that the theory on democratization is fairly applicable to the case but that the result is different from what the theory indicates. The reason for this is said to be a third variable that biases the result. This variable is taken from the second theory and in the analysis it is suggests that the so called ?regime-boosting? phenomenon is present within the AU and NEPAD and is the reason as to why the two initiatives are malfunctioning on the democracy area