US foreign policy and democracy promotion: in search of purpose
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117813489655b |
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| Author | Jeff Bridoux |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Forum: democracy and world order |
Kurki et al. 235
US foreign policy and democracy promotion: in search
of purpose
Jeff Bridoux
Aberystwyth University, UK
What type of democracy is the United States promoting exactly? Has liberal democracy
been always the name of the game? Is American democracy promotion more conceptually
diverse than we think? This article looks at the evolution of United States’ democracy pro-
motion from a historical and conceptual perspective. The starting point of the analysis is to
consider that American foreign policy has been and is still shaped by identity as much as by
power. This identity is built on three elements, namely, democracy, liberal rights and capital-
ism, all of which have played a unique role in the institution of a particular type of ‘revolu-
tionary’ state, a state that embarked on a quasi-constant promotion of liberal democratic
ideas and values in its foreign policy.1 A historically grounded analysis of United States’
democracy promotion shows that, far from being a conceptual monolith, the United States’
model of political and economic liberalization has the potential to be more conceptually
diverse than the usual emphasis on the classic model of liberal democracy and free market
economy. This diversity is rooted in four moments in American history. Each moment con-
tributed to how democracy promotion was conceptualized (what type of democracy was
promoted) and practised (how democracy was spread). These defining moments can be best
described as paradigmatic moments. Indeed, each moment reflects a shift in defining the
limits of the role of democracy promotion in US foreign policy as well as its nature. The
analysis reveals that this role is conditioned, or influenced, by three types of pressures:
United States’ domestic politico-economic conditions, strategic interests and international
ideological challenges to the politico-economic model promoted by the United States – lib-
eral democracy and capitalist economy. This article concludes that far from an exclusive
reliance on liberal democracy, American democracy promotion oscillates between variants
of the liberal democratic model – classical liberal democracy, reform liberal and neo-liberal
democracy – and social democracy. The article also contends that despite this diversity of
conceptual visions of democracy within United States’ democracy promotion, today, any
systematic shift away from classical liberal democracy is not happening. Such a failure may
prove to be a mistake in a global, a regional and an even domestic context in which the
shortcomings of liberal democracy are exposed by the global financial crisis and a growing
discrepancy between United States’ democracy programmes and expectations from civil
society in countries undergoing directed political and economic liberalization.
Paradigmatic moments
Four moments in American history conditioned how democracy promotion was concep-
tualized and practised. The first of these paradigmatic moments was the post-World War
I Wilsonian push for democratic republics in international politics. For Wilson, military
power and imperialism, both caused by autocracy, were to be replaced by a rule of law in
which a world public opinion, rather than alliances and armaments, would be the key to
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