One of the major challenges for consolidating democratic societies in the Western Balkans is to overcome the persisting gap between civil society and party political actors. This ENOP-paper presents case studies and examples of the work of political foundations and underlines the benefits of establishing dialogue between civil society and party political actors.
The policy paper was elaborated by members of the ENoP Working Group on Africa-EU Relations. In order to complement the European perspective, three chapters have been co-authored by African partners.
The discussion paper was drafted on request of the EEAS division on Human Rights and Democracy. It sums up the key messages of ENOP members in regard to political party support.
This paper will argue that in a rapidly changing world with often threatened, weak or non-existing democracies, Political Foundations fill a gap between public policies, globalized markets and civil society efforts by offering services which transcend the borders between states and between public and private actors.
This paper argues that political pluralism can only be fostered by going beyond the classical areas of donor engagement such as election support, good governance, human rights and the rule of law
