During the Cold War, democracy promotion was generally seen only in the context of anti-communism, but the rationale for the limited democracy promotion that took place during this period was that freedom and democracy were an appealing alternative to communism. Unfortunately, the notion that these were also appealing alternatives to right-wing authoritarians regimes seemed to be lost on too many Cold War era policymakers in the United States.
It was America’s first born-again Christian president, Jimmy Carter, who introduced an explicitly moral dimension to democracy promotion by stressing the import of human rights in foreign policy.12 Carter’s notion that the internal workings and human rights record of a country should influence American policy toward that country was initially scoffed at by many who felt that during the Cold War the only consideration was how a government aligned itself between the two superpowers.13 However, as we will see later, it was the neoconservatives during the presidency of George W. Bush who, ironically, revived this morally driven view in their strong support of democracy promotion—even in some countries which were U.S. allies but not democratic.
Carter’s introduction of human rights into American foreign policy gave way to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the prosecution of the Cold War with renewed vigor. Reagan incorporated democracy promotion into his Cold War strategy through “Project Democracy,” which included exchange programs and other cultural activities aimed at exposing people from communist countries to American-style democracy.14 These programs were, not surprisingly, focused on the ideological struggle of the Cold War and sought to contrast Reagan’s America with, for example, late and post-Brezhnev Soviet Union. The battleground of the Cold War at that time was primarily Central America, where the leftist Sandinista revolution had just occurred in Nicaragua, so much of Reagan’s democracy promotion, like his Cold War strategy in general, was focused on that region.
Reagan’s democracy promotion strategy was not, however, limited to these types of programs. In 1983, the administration, with support from Congress, funded and initiated the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization that funds democracy assistance advocates in the U.S. and abroad as well as providing funding for its core grantees, including NDI and the International Republican Institute (IRI). NDI and IRI are U.S.-based implementing organizations with similar democracy assistance mandates. They are loosely affiliated with the Democratic and Republican parties respectively.
Thus, much of the infrastructure for the modern era of democracy promotion was created in the 1980s and initially perceived as part of an effort to win the Cold War. The perception of the NED as an instrument of the Cold War changed somewhat after the NED supported democratization efforts in the Philippines in 1986 and the presidential plebiscite in Chile in 1988. Interestingly, not only did this infrastructure continue after the Cold War ended, but the post-Cold War period saw these organizations’ biggest impact.
The collapse of authoritarian regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s—especially in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union—also consolidated the idea that democracy was a human right rather than the system of government or ideology of a handful of countries.15 The Vienna Declaration on Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993, declared democracy a universal right, adding that “The international community should support the strengthening and promoting of democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in the world.”16 The evolution of democracy from a political ideology and system of government to one of the poles in the bipolar world of the Cold War and then to a political right, the consensus form of government, and ultimately a human right, is a key development for international politics and democracy promotion.17
With the end of the Cold War, democracy promotion began to take on a qualitatively different role in U.S. foreign policy, and to a lesser extent in many European countries as well. For the United States, it was no longer an abstract principle with a vague impact on policy, nor did it continue to be seen as an often inconvenient consideration when broader strategic questions were examined. Instead, it began to become increasingly central to foreign policy with programs and budgets to match this centrality. These budgets remain a relatively small fraction of overall foreign policy monies, but budgets are bigger than ever.18 Moreover, measuring democracy promotion’s import simply by looking at how much money goes to democracy promoting organizations misses a great deal because democracy promotion can also take other forms, such as the public statements of diplomats and policymakers and the components of larger aid packages. Furthermore, democracy promotion programs are not usually expensive because they rarely include the direct delivery of goods or services.
In the initial period following the end of the Cold War, roughly 1989 to 2001, democracy promotion began to focus on the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Once the dust had settled on the rapid transformation of the former Soviet empire, Europe and the United States began to commit resources to building democratic institutions throughout the region. Although the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, along with genocide and wars there throughout the 1990s dominated the news, there are also many, quieter success stories as countries like Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states made rapid strides toward democracy before joining the European Union in the early twenty-first century.
Democracy promotion and democratization in the 1990s were not limited to the post-Communist world. The third wave of democratization that had begun in Southern Europe in the 1970s broke onto the shores of Asia, South America, and Africa as well.19 Taiwan and South Korea continued to consolidate their democratic gains from previous years; dramatic breakthroughs occurred in Chile, South Africa, and elsewhere; and less dramatic steps toward democratization took place in other countries in other parts of Africa, Asia, and South America.
Although democracy made substantial gains globally throughout most of the 1990s, a number of formerly authoritarian countries seemed to slide backward as the decade came to a close. Other countries had proved to be very difficult environments for building democratic institutions as some parts of the world, notably China, North Korea, and the Middle East, had shown themselves to be largely unaffected by the third wave of democratization. Thus, as the new century began there was still a great deal of democratization to be done, but the initial excitement had worn off. Instead, a structure of donors, NGOs, governmental organizations, consultants, and private businesses had emerged to implement the complex American democracy promotion policies, which had begun to assume a more a more central position in American foreign policy.
Democracy promotion became a central component of American foreign policy during the administration of President Bill Clinton. In the 1995 National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, the Clinton administration identified democracy promotion as one of its three central security goals. The document also asserted that
All of America’s strategic interests—from promoting prosperity at home to checking global threats abroad before they threaten our territory—are served by enlarging the community of democratic and free market nations. Thus, working with new democratic states to help preserve them as democracies committed to free markets and respect for human rights, is a key part of our national security strategy. One of the most gratifying and encouraging. (22)
Nonetheless, it was America’s second born-again Christian president, George W. Bush, who was strongest in stressing the moral dimension of democracy promotion. In the years following the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, democracy promotion assumed an even more central role in foreign policy as Bush aggressively, and with stunning lack of success, sought to democratize the Middle East, one of the world’s least democratic regions. Bush made democracy promotion a centerpiece of his foreign policy and linked it closely to American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush spoke explicitly about the moral dimension of democracy. He often referred to democracy, or “freedom,” as a right that had been given to all humanity by God. This moral dimension informed more than just Bush’s words as his presidency