Democracy Promotion and Foreign Policy

Identity and Interests in US, EU and Non-Western Democracies

D. Huber

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349682058, 9781137414465
• eBook ISBN: 9781137414472
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Democracy promotion is an established principle in US and EU foreign policies today, but how did it become so? This comparative study explores the promotion of democracy, focusing on exponents from emerging democracies alongside more established Western models, and investigates the impact of democratic interests on foreign policy.

Part I

Democracy Promotion – Who Does What and Why?

1

Who Promotes Democracy? The Protagonists

While democracy promotion is often perceived as a new foreign policy phenomenon, it has actually ebbed and flowed throughout history alongside democracy itself. This chapter briefly follows democracy promotion’s history with a short overview on historical democracy promoters such as Ancient Athens, as well as the French and British empires, before it moves to contemporary democracy promoters, concretely three generations of them: the United States, Europe, and non-Western emerging democratic powers.

Historical democracy promoters

Democracy promotion has appeared together with democracy itself; indeed it was arguably through democracy promotion that Ancient Athens became aware of the concept of diverse forms of governance, the uniqueness of its own form, and the possibility to change or choose among them (Bleicken 1979).¹ First instances of democracy promotion emerged already in times of transition to democracy. With the Thetes – the lowest Athenian class and backbone of Athenian sea power which had demanded equal rights in their city – democratic ideas were sailing ‘in persona’ throughout the Aegean (Bleicken 1979, 168). This diffusion of democratic ideas was highly explosive. The transformation of Athens into a radical democracy where political power was transferred to the poorer classes (de Ste. Croix 1954) and the growing awareness that this form of governance could also be transported to other city states represented a massive challenge to the traditional orders in Hellas, spearheaded by Sparta. The Peloponnesian wars were then not only caused by the growth of Athenian power (Thucydides 1972, I.23), but – to paraphrase Thucydides – by the growth of Athenian democracy which brought fear to the Lacedaemonians and forced them to war. It was precisely during the Peloponnesian wars that a debate on the best constitutional form appeared in the Hellenic world.²

It was also during the Peloponnesian wars that Athenian democracy promotion grew and became systematic. Typically, Athens would arrive with a fleet to a city in which then either the local democrats would seize power alone or the Athenians would directly intervene. In case of intervention, the Athenian assembly defined which kind of democracy to install and Athenian officials supervised the implementation.³ Athens also systematically imposed massive social changes on the cities where it promoted democracy (Schuller 1981, 286). Wealthy oligarchs were not only disempowered politically, but also economically. Their possessions were confiscated, they were exiled, and, in the worst case, executed. Nonetheless, democrats that were put in power by Athens were often weak and thus dependent on Athenian protection in the form of military garrisons installed in allied city states (Schuller 1979, 83). Democracy promotion therefore was an instrument to ensure loyalty to the Athenian empire. Furthermore, allied democratic cities were more transparent and thus easier to monitor. Athens posted episkopoi and other officials in allied democratic cities who followed assembly discussions and so were always aware of the political directions allies were heading to.

During the course of the Second Peloponnesian War, however, Athenian democracy promotion became increasingly violent. While in the Erythrae decree (about 453 BCE) confiscation of oligarchic property was still regulated and subsumed to jurisdiction, during the Second Peloponnesian War this was increasingly replaced by executions without judicial process. An extreme example of this is the Athenian toleration of the mass slaughter of oligarchs by democrats in Kerkyrain (today Corfu) in 425 BCE, as well as the Athenian execution of 1,000 oligarchs in Mytilene in 427 BCE. Such atrocities led to irreconcilability between oligarchic and democratic factions and festered endless civil war (stasis) in city states. Whereas up to the Second Peloponnesian War democracy had gained in legitimacy through Athenian achievements in arts, sciences, and wealth, and was hence spreading throughout Greece, during the course of the Second Peloponnesian War democracy became increasingly associated with the violent rule of the mob due to Athens’s aggressive behavior. It did not only instill stasis in city states through democracy promotion, but was also involved in mass atrocities, most famously perhaps in Melos, and engaged in disastrous military campaigns as in Sicily – leading ultimately to the disqualification of democracy by history.

For a long period democracy had a negative connotation. Not only did Plato criticize democracy (in The Republic, written about 380 BCE [Plato 1980]), but Aristotle also saw democracy as a perversion of the best regime type – polity – and argued for a mixed constitution in Politics (Aristotle 1977, written about 350 BCE). Reflecting on Athenian experiences, philosophers as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, and James Madison were either critical of democracy or cautious about some of its shortcomings (Roberts 1994). The concept of democracy only started to gain ground again when the idea of representative democracy emerged in the 17th century. James Mill called this the ‘grand discovery of modern times’ (quoted in Ball 1992, xx) and by the late 18th century ‘it was obvious and unarguable that democracy must be representative’ (Dahl 1989, 28–29). Representation was not only seen as a bulwark against the instability of direct democracies, but also became associated with international peace. In 1795 Immanuel Kant argued in Perpetual Peace that republics (states with representative governments and separation of powers) are more peaceful since all citizens would be responsible for their decisions and bear the results of war (Kant 1957). Democracy had lost its negative connotation and was making inroads in North America, France, and England.

It was the American Revolution and the US Declaration of Independence of 1776 that represented ‘the high point of the radical democratic surge’ (Dolbeare 1989, 25) of that period. While the United States did not actively seek to promote democracy abroad at the time, democratic ideas diffused to Europe, above all to France which had supported the American revolutionaries in order to balance against the British Empire and thus allowed the distribution of American literature in France. What most impressed French readers about the American Revolution ‘was the very act of constitution-making itself, the constituting or reconstituting of government through the principle of the people as constituent power’ (Palmer 1969, 266). Thus, while the American Revolution did not directly drive the French Revolution, it did encourage the belief in the possibility of change in France.

The French Revolution had the same effect in Europe, and European monarchs and nobilities immediately perceived it as an ideational threat to their power. When revolts started to occur in countries like Holland, Geneva, or Poland, foreign monarchs intervened right away to suppress them, stirring fears in France about an eminent foreign reactionary intervention in their country (Palmer 1969, 484). The first revolutionary wars can therefore be seen as ‘preventive wars’ which initially aimed at creating buffer zones between France and hostile monarchies such as Germany and Austria (Blanning 1986; 1996). In these zones the French revolutionary armies systematically introduced radical institutional changes including the abolition of serfdom, quasi-feudalism, the power of the clergy and of the guilds in the cities, as well as the establishment of equality before the law (Acemoglu et al. 2009, 11; Grab 2003). Many of these reforms were later on continued by Napoleon, notably through the Code Napoléon (Woolf 2002; Grab 2003). While these often radical institutional changes were accompanied by what came to be called la Terreur (Andress 2006), they also destroyed the institutional underpinnings of the power of oligarchies and elites (Acemoglu et al. 2009) and made reforms such as due process in courts, the abolition of privileges, and civil law systems difficult to reverse in the reactionary time period heralded by the Concert of Europe in 1815.

Ideas of the French Revolution were also incorporated in the official doctrine associated with France’s imperial conquests: the mission civilisatrice. But rather than exporting the French Revolution, the way the revolution was remembered in France⁴ made the French feel superior to their colonial subjects, implying that ‘France’s colonial subjects were too primitive to rule themselves, but were capable of being uplifted’ (Conklin 1997, 1). Thus, rather than transferring the values of the revolution to their colonies, the French believed they first had to ‘modernize’ their colonial subjects, often through despotic means, before they would be able to rule themselves. Like the French, the British also perceived themselves as superior due their political, economic, and technological breakthroughs in the 19th century and saw their colonial subjects as ‘uncivilized’ nations, incapable of self-rule. As James Mill argued,

If we wish for the prolongation of an English government in India, which we do most sincerely, it is for the sake of the natives, not of England. India has never been anything but a burden; and anything but a burden, we are afraid, it cannot be rendered. But this English government in India, with all its vices, is a blessing of unspeakable magnitude to the population of Hindustan. Even the utmost abuse of European power is better, we are persuaded, than the most temperate exercise of Oriental despotism. (quoted in Pitts 2005, 125)

The Empire’s official doctrine became that it was spreading liberal practices throughout its colonies, notably through colonial assemblies, free trade, and evangelical missionaries. The justification ‘of British imperial rule ... through much of the nineteenth century, began to rest primarily on arguments that Britain brought (and was alone capable of bringing) good government to India’ (Pitts 2005, 16), despite the fact that democratic institutions were exported only sporadically and mainly to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In India limited representative institutions were introduced only toward the end of the 19th century. Democracy promotion has never been a systematic policy of the British Empire.⁵

Contemporary democracy promoters

Democracy promotion came back in a systematic manner only in the 20th century when the United States abandoned its policy of isolation and entered the stage of world politics. The United States can indeed be seen as a first-generation contemporary democracy promoter since its policies and experiences have influenced and shaped democracy promotion policies of later generations of democracy promoters through direct (the United States has urged other democracies to participate in democracy promotion) as well as indirect influence (other democracies have copied US policies). It was under President Woodrow Wilson that the essential understandings of the purposes, meanings, and instruments of democracy promotion were laid which influence the conceptualization of this policy until today.

While Thomas Jefferson tried to protect US democracy from corruption from Europe by a policy of isolation which prevented the US from participating in Europe’s imperial race, Woodrow Wilson sought to protect American democracy by ‘making the world safe for democracy’ (Tucker 1993). Sporadic democracy promotion had already started in the Philippines (1899) and was pursued by Wilson in Mexico (1914), Haiti (1915), and the Dominican Republic (1916). After World War I and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Wilson sought to set up democracies in newly established states such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Besides democracy promotion through bilateral means, he also pursued democratic aims in multilateral relations and tried to create a Pan-American Liberty Pact (Drake 1991). Membership in the League of Nations was limited to democracies, as Wilson believed that a ‘steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants’ (Wilson 1917; T. Smith 1994, 84–109; Cohrs 2006).⁶ However, maybe Wilson’s approach was too idealistic, maybe the world was not ‘safe for democracy’ yet. In any case, democracy could not establish itself in Europe and the League of Nations failed. With the Great Depression this first activist approach to democracy promotion came to an end (Drake 1991; Munoz 1998).

After the World War II, the United States was more concerned with the stability of allied states than democratization. There were two striking exceptions to this rule: the cases of Germany and Japan. In no other historical instance was democracy promotion pursued with such a massive financial and systematic effort. In other cases, like Turkey and Greece, for example, democratization was ignored for the sake of stability. The United States found itself ‘in the uncomfortable position of actively supporting authoritarian regimes, and this in the name of fostering a liberal democratic world order’ (T. Smith 1994, 139). But the low point of US democracy promotion was yet to come. From the liberalism of Wilson to the liberal realism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States moved to the active overthrow of democratically elected regimes in Iran (of elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, 1953) and Guatemala (of elected President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, 1954) during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency. Containing communism took precedence over democracy promotion (Light 2001, 77) and a Cold War consensus emerged in which almost any means was justified. This period was shortly interrupted by the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who sought to escape the dilemma of containing communism and promoting democracy by keeping up strong alliances with autocracies and investing billions of dollars into the Alliance of Progress to change the socio-economic structure of neighboring countries. Following Kennedy, stability became the ‘holy grail’ (Schoultz 1998, 358) of the Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford administrations. The Nixon/Ford-Kissinger administrations pursued a realist policy that turned a blind eye to any democratic concerns and did not even try to cover this foreign policy with democracy rhetoric. Another democratically elected government was overthrown with US involvement: the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger commented that he did not ‘see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people’ (quoted in Schoultz 1998, 349). Later on Kissinger also instructed US ambassador to Chile, David Popper, who had confronted the Chilean government with allegations of torture, ‘to cut out the political science lectures’ (quoted in Schoultz 1998, 349). Kissinger, however, had based his rationale on a comprehension of the international system which was already out of tune with the new understandings of the era. Democracy and human rights became the call of the time, not only inside the United States, but also in the world arena. Following profound changes in American democracy and the normative structure of the world order, the consensus on Realpolitik disintegrated and gave way to new conceptions of foreign policy.

With President Jimmy Carter a radically new foreign policy agenda entered the White House. Inspired by the rights consciousness within the United States, Carter incorporated human rights and democratic freedoms into his foreign policy toward Central and South America on an unprecedented level and sparked a foreign policy debate in the course of which democracy promotion became a shared bipartisan foreign policy goal. During the last period of the Cold War a bureaucracy and script for democracy promotion was developed which guides US democracy promotion until today. The Carter administration strengthened the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the State Department, the Reagan administration established the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), and the Clinton administration made democracy promotion one of the three main pillars of its foreign policy, created United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Democracy and Governance program, its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), and the State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Fund (HRDF). The surge of US democracy promotion activities, however, came with the first Bush administration. Facing a highly uncertain world after September 11, it began to see the lack of democracy in the Arab world as the breeding ground for ‘the ideologies of murder’ (Bush 2003) and developed its Freedom Agenda which made democracy promotion a US mission toward ‘every nation and culture’ (Bush 2005), with a primary focus on the Middle East. Besides the justification of the Iraq War with democracy rhetoric which damaged the whole Western democracy agenda (Carothers 2009b; Whitehead 2009), the Bush administration established the US–Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a democracy assistance program for the Middle East, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). This democracy euphoria, however, was soon dampened when electoral gains of political Islam were made in relatively free elections in Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon in the 2005–2006 period. Crowned by the electoral victory of Hamas in the 2006 parliamentary elections in Palestine, this represented a foreign policy disaster for an administration that had been entirely driven by its Freedom Agenda in pushing the Palestinian Authority to hold free elections and that consequentially was caught off guard by Hamas’s electoral victory. As a result, the Bush administration backtracked on its Freedom Agenda and what emerged ‘was a policy caught between free trade liberalization, as the positive route to eventual democratization, and domination, to the extent that it increasingly favored regional stability, the continuation of long-term security interests and the undermining of regimes that challenged its hegemony over the region’ (Hassan 2012, 127). Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency imbued people in the region with hopes for a ‘new beginning’ (Obama 2009). Facing not only a world but also a home public increasingly doubtful of democracy promotion, the Obama administration at first de-emphasized the issue, but was soon pulled back into it through democratic breakthroughs in the world (Carothers 2012), notably the Arab u...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I  Democracy Promotion Who Does What and Why?
• Part II  The United States and Democracy Promotion in Central and South America in the Last Period of the Cold War
• Part III  The EU and Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean Region since the End of the Cold War
• Part IV  Turkey and Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean Region since the Early 2000s
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index