The European Union exports democracy to sub-Saharan Africa through four main instruments: the European Development Fund, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, "specific" programs and the Development Cooperation Instrument. Exporting democracy beyond the EU's borders is linked to issues of internal security and power on the international stage. The result of this process, in which the EU has been involved in this region alongside other players since the early 1990s, is a complex and contrasting landscape of countries oscillating between two main poles: attempts at progress and the ruses of political leaders feigning the establishment of democratic institutions. This studyprovides information on the process of norm circulation between two societies, which must always be perceived and analyzed as an interaction, given that democracy is such an endogenous phenomenon in Africa.