Beyond ‘Venus and Mars’: Comparing Transatlantic Approaches to Democracy Promotion. College of Europe EU Diplomacy Paper 5/2007, August 2007

Robert Kagan’s provocative thesis of ‘Venus and Mars’ posited America and Europe at two diametrically opposed strategic poles. However, this paper argues that Democracy Promotion is an area with the potential for intensive US-EU cooperation beyond ‘Venus and Mars’. Democracy Promotion is a key concept in the EU’s as well as US foreign policy discourse and practice. Both EU and US rhetoric hint at a belief in the logic of the Democratic Peace thesis. While the EU and the US lack comprehensive Democracy Promotion strategies, it is nevertheless possible to discern distinctive approaches to Democracy Promotion that reveal both convergences and divergences between the EU and the US. It is most likely that enhanced coordination on the strategic, political, policy and even operational levels might emerge as a middle ground between even less cooperation (and more independence in Democracy Promotion endeavours), on the one hand, and a full-fledged joint Transatlantic Democracy Promotion Agenda, on the other