The hypocrisy of the foreign policy establishment is breathtaking.

The US pursues its interests all around the world, and these interests are virtually never defined by ideology (such as democracy promotion, good governance, human rights, etc).
They are defined by what, at any given instant, looks more favorable to the US: and, the thing is, there is remarkable convergence between the two parties about that. There is only ONE school of foreign policy: self-interest. The only difference is between those who have the honesty to call themselves self-interestists and the others who cloak themselves in the garment of democracy promotion and other mother-teresa-esque claptrap (with tons of wink, wink, nod, nod to the Saudis, all the stans so they don't worry their pretty little heads about that kind of talk).

Trouble is, that cynical (oh dear) view doesn't square with the creed. So political scientists will have long debates as to whether the US should pursue this lofty goal or that lofty goal -- regardless lof the absolute irrelevance of their theories.

Their genius is not in their brilliant insights but in that they actually manage to get paid the big bucks to peddle their drivel.

The US is about the only democracy I know where there is NO debate about foreign policy: just pretense of debate. Bush invades Iraq with a frown; A.M. Slaughter would do it with a smile. That's the full extent of the debate.

It occurred to me today reading this:

....A confident-looking Mr. Saleh has predicted in interviews with Arab satellite channels and newspapers that the opposition will suffer a significant defeat.

“Many people abroad may expect us in the third world to be holding these sorts of things as political theater,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “But we are trying to establish a better future for Yemen, we are doing it on our own without others doing it for us, and we are not succumbing to pressure from outside,” apparently a reference to the Bush administration’s policy for democratization in the Arab world.....

from "Yemen Leader Is Now Paying for Providing Open Election" by HASSAN M. FATTAH in Sana, Yemen,

that's it's going may be a long time before others in the world are again interested in "democracy promotion" from the U.S. It's almost as if for a while it will be more counter-productive for us to even say anything, much less get involved in any substantial way, especially as long as Iraq and Afghanistan are a mess (whether we have troops there or not.) I doubt whether it will matter much whether it is a different political party.

This is, of course, separate from presentations of theory for domestic political consumption. But are you sure that even that is an "easy sell" at this point in time? Perhaps a sort of Washingtonian "isolationism" will be the populist stance, i.e., make some good examples to emulate with your own country and what you have bitten off already (Afghanistan, Iraq....) before proseltyzing?

It's the arrogance of "do as I say, not as I do", after all, that has made the messages of anti-U.S. demagogues resound with so many the last several decades, not just since Bush. It's gotten a lot worse with him, of course, but I just don't see much of a reverse in course with world opinion taking us seriously "promoting democracy" until Iraq and Afghanistan are in better shape.

There is certainly a need to highlight other related values and concepts of freedom, equity, and justice. Haste and an overemphasis on the popular mandate have indeed blinded us to the possibilities of incremental liberalization -- the precursors and pathways. The problem of course is that these other things are not democracy.

Here is how Halperin/Siegle/Weinstein summarize the problem in The Democracy Advantage:

“Another frequent error is to assume that countries that are moving away from authoritarian rule are automatically moving toward democracy .. However, reduced repression does not necessarily indicate increased democracy. Conflating the two trends risks creating an unjustifiably broad classification of democratizers.”

Okay, but we still need a rubric for what "reduced repression" is, and I don't think "good governance" is it. I can't provide an answer, but I have some questions:

-- If loosening the over-concentration of power in certain hands is not a move toward democracy, then what is it?
-- Can we recognize a difference between the concept of repression (or abuse of rights), which I think connotes active and acute persecution, and more chronic privileging and under-privileging?
-- Doesn’t the latter sound related to the “for the people” aspect of democracy?
-- Where does “reduced repression” end and “toward democracy” begin? Is there no relation between the two?

I'm all for democracy -- it's basic to who we are and what our culture is. But I've traveled enough to realize that democracy a la US is not what other people are envious about when they look at us. Hey! We haven't even been able to count on it ourselves lately, have we!

Quite apart from that, we assume we know that democracy is best for everyone which, if you think about it, is not unlike the attitude which some of the more notorious evangelicals hold about their closely held beliefs. Is there anything more odious than their santimonious assumption that they and only they have the answer? Could it be that we look very much the same to others as those evangelicals do us?

Then, too, we need to take some time off and discover who we really have become -- in Louisiana, as Bluebell points out, and in other areas of our national life. Wouldn't we do better by helping those who need our help when they request it rather than telling them, often at the point of a gun and after we've killed off nine tenths of their family and neighors and blown up their entire infrastructure, how to be more like us?

Instead, we could get to work and restore democracy at home -- and there's plenty of work to do in that quarter. Once we've had sufficient experience working the authoritarianism and dominance of corporate elites out of our own system and the fairness and economic justice back in -- after we've proven we can actually do what we preach -- then we may be asked to help others do the same. Right now we look like awful hypocrites, and wildly incompetent to boot. Or like the very devil, as that annoyingly savvy Hugo Chavez pointed out today.

Artappraiser, is it also the arrogance of "do as I say, not as I do" that has made the pro-American demagogues (Blair, Howard, Berlusconi, Asnar, Fox) sound so very hollow?

Sitting in East Asia, there are additional problems with democracy promotion to those discussed here. For many Asians living in countries that call themselves democracies, the idea of democracy has fallen on hard times and is synonymous with dysfunctional government. Many point to the Philippines, and some to the US under Bush. But there is noticeable lack of good governance in nominally democratic countries througout the region, arguably including Japan, as well as Taiwan. To democracy's many thoughtful critics (yes, they do exist) and the masses who need convincing, this collective experience of the past half century or so falls short on so many levels. Democratic institutions have failed to check widespread corruption and other abuses of power, given license to news media which pander to populist politicians and profiterring corporations, spawned political parties that fail to mediate the deep polarization of wealth and identity conflicts and instead merely reflect those divisions, failed to recruit sufficient numbers of honest, capable people to public service, etc. It is a sad record, kept at arms length by popular myths about the virtues of periodic elections, free speech, and other tired symbols of an open society. So if we must have democracy promotion in US foreign policy, there needs to be fewer abstractions and more realism about the problems and setbacks democracy faces in the real world and the endless struggle to make it work.

I like the positions that Mr. Jentleson has described. 

I look at Pakistan.  Musharraf is a de facto dictator.  But on the international stage he is a "good citizen".  I am no big fan of him but he hasn't allowed the Kashmir dispute escalate and gave us some credibility in the ME by siding with us when we invaded Afghanistan.  Bush subsequently threw that credibility in the toilet and flushed it by invading Iraq, but it doesn't diminsh what Musharraf did when he did it.  But again that doesn't mean he is a nice guy...but he isn't causing trouble either.

As many others have underscored the point that pushing democracy will lead to governments that are more hostile to us...the exact opposite outcome than desired.  I think we should encourage democracy by our actions.  We should respect the international rule of law which we didn't when we without provocation attacked Iraq.  

The thing that intruiged me when I heard it was that the Canadian who (the guy who did nothing wrong) was subject to a US "rendition" was sent to Syria for his torture.  The last I knew we weren't on very good terms with Syria.  When did Assad and Bush become "buddies" on the GWOT.  Of all places, Syria?  Who knows maybe we are rendering terrorists to Iran for interrogation too...

This thread persuades me that Americans are not qualified to talk about Democracy, either at home or abroad. Much of the discussion seems to magically combine shocking naivete with hopeless cynicism, held together by a thick layer of arrogance that borders on racism.

It makes my head hurt.

the United States and its allies would be well-advised to focus on ‘good governance’ as a key foreign-policy goal

Really.

Suppose a corrupt and incompetent government in ,say Niger , is obliging us by refusing to sell yellow cake to , say , Saddam . Would we be "well advised " to work towards replacing it with an honest efficient government which will sell to the highest bidder ?

Our key foreign policy goal is our own security . Any other goals should be consistent with that . And the approach least likely to conflict with it is.... mind our own business.

That does not require being mean spirited. We can be generous with our assistance  while being parsimonious with our advice. 

"We're neither pure nor wise nor good"* so let's focus on making our own garden grow.

*Candide- the musical.

My problem with the democracy first concept is that it has been tried before. Between the two World Wars, quite a few small nations attempted to function as democratic republics. Many of them ended up as dictatorships that were better loved by the populations.

The problem was not that these people lacked some native intelligence required to live in a republic. Simply put, their societies had metaphorical growing pains as they attempted to modernize and liberalize at the same time. People associated "democracy" with the "freedom to starve."

Democracy promotion seems like the grade school version of nation building to me. The United States did not have to learn how to be a nation all at once. We enjoyed the rights and priveliges of British subjects so human rights came before the republic. (Obviously, slavery is the great blemish of the early republic.) We experienced the ups and downs of what was then a pretty modern economy. We had extensive experience with the British constitutional monarchy and we modified it to suit our needs.

With all of this training and time to get it right, we still needed more time for reforms like direct election of senators. One might say that we still have much further to go with structural changes like abolishing the Electoral College. Few people have good answers to the problems of money and politics.

Shouldn't we look at the idea of promoting a crash course of democracy very carefully? I believe that human rights are a better first step. This includes the rights of women, minorities and those considered "undesirable" by the autocracies. Let's promote freedom of the press and the right to peaceful assembly.

I could go on and on. If democratic republics are the eventual goal and benchmarks are set to head in that direction, I'm all for it. It's just not right to set the cart before the horse.

Thoughtful.

I have checked out your journal.

Thud.

Git oooot of ere, ye hoser!

Where I think this thread is off track is the lack of understanding what constitutes a strategy. I remember beach reading FIASCO over the summer which details in torturous detail how the Bushies could not comprehend a strategy for Iraq and just kept applying tactical band-aids to a gaping wound.

We need to start with a really abstract abstract, boil it down to a vague abstract, and then refine it to an abstract. In and of itself such an abstract is meaningless and implies no action. Put as a strategy, however, it can inform the tactical initiatives and make them cohensive.

What scares me about these invitations to "develop a strategy" is that everyone crowds the table with their own specific pet projects/peeves. The end result is a incohesive, incoherent muddle of positions and tactics.

Here's a litmus test to make sure a strategy is a strategy. Does it sound insanely simple? If yes, you're on your way. If no, disaster is guaranteed.

No offense, to my friend from the 51st State (Canada). Take two socialized medicine Tylenals (which you probably got at a lower price than down here) and your head ache will go away.

And let's not overlook the Malefacters of Great Wealth -- the monopolists of intellectual property who, given their druthers, would copyright the world and have it pay them for the privilege of breathing.

If people are looking for a truly progressive vision – or at least something that used to be considered a progressive vision - one that is neither a form of hard-bitten and purely selfish realpolitique, ostrich-like isolationism or latter-day liberal interventionism, I suggest they re-acquaint themselves with the United Nations charter, and the rather noble ideals and principles embodied therein.

It occurs to me that many contemporary centrist liberal interventionists, despite a certain amount of lip service toward the UN mechanism, have really lost the internationalist spirit on which it was based. Some of the UN ideals, such as the promotion of human rights and social advancement, are still very important to them. But others, such as the preservation of peace, the promotion of international law and order, and the promotion of economic development, don’t inspire their passionate commitment. It’s not that these Reagan liberals are actually opposed to the latter three ideals and don’t care about them at all, but they don’t talk much about the first two, and the last has often been reduced to an enthusiasm for “free trade.”

This observation applies above all to the goal of the preservation of peace. If anything can be said to be the supreme value set forth in the charter, it is the preservation of peace. The references to peace and peace preservation are incessant throughout the document, and preventing war is given pride of place in the very first clause of the Preamble. Here is that Preamble:

We the peoples of the United Nations

- to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

- to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

- to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

- to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

And For These Ends:

- to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

- to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

- to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

- to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

Have Resolved to Combine our Efforts to Accomplish these Ends

Yet how many contemporary centrist liberals speak movingly and convincingly of the preservation of peace, or give any indication that they truly regard war as a scourge. They are too busy trying to persuade everyone that they are “tough” and “muscular”, and that they are not those dreaded “pacifists.”

The charter goes on in Chapter One, Article Two, to articulate the organization’s foundational principles. The very first principle cited is this:

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

I can't think of a single contemporary liberal writer or prominence from the elite foreign policy class, or its rising youth corps of nationalist understudies, who has made a point of defending the principle of the sovereign equality of UN member states. Indeed, most now seem to take it for granted that this principle is absurd, and that it is out of the question that the “exceptional” United States should treat other UN member states as its equals in any way. They propose a well-intentioned supremacy and courteous overlordship should replace equality.

Where they do deign to endorse internationalist goals, and an international order, the order they tend to propose is based on an explicit international class structure, with NATO, or some other proposed “league of democracies” lording it over all the other nations in the world who are presumed to be in some backward or retarded stage of political development toward democracy – see John Ikenberry. And then even inside the aristocratic nation-class of democracies, the United States is supposed to aspire toward perpetual primacy. So in place of the sovereign equality of nations we have the principle of the sovereign primacy of the United States within the aristocratic primacy of liberal democracies.

The principle of the sovereign equality of UN member states, it must be emphasized, is not based on a wooly-minded and unrealistic notion that all member states are “equally good”. The people who organized the UN understood very well that there was no deep moral equivalence between states. But they made a judgment that the evils tolerated by respect for the principle of sovereign equality were balanced by evils evaded: those evils associated with the grave threats of global war and devastation flowing from a general tolerance of intervention in the affairs of other nations.

The fact is, almost every nation thinks it is better than other nations, culturally, morally and politically. Thus, an alternative founding principle, such as:

1*. The Organization is based on the principle of the right of superior nations to transform inferior nations, by peaceful means if possible, but by war if necessary,

would be a recipe for global disaster.

Our own country has political and legal traditions based on the equal rights of all its citizens, especially before the law. Now we know that some of society's members are simply much better people than others of society's members. Some are enlightened; while others teach their children hateful and ignorant doctrines and habits; some are thoughtful and compassionate, while others are mean and insulting and vicious; some are public spirited, while others are thoroughly selfish and manipulative; some seek a better world, while others seek only their own power and aggrandizement.

So does that mean we should not have a society based on the equality of all its members? I would think most liberals would reject this suggestion, and recognize that the harms that come from granting liberty, free scope of action and equal protection of the law to all of society’s members, with out regard to judgments about their moral character, so long as they conform their behavior to the law, are outweighed by the benefits flowing from the tranquil, law-governed and predominantly just political that depends on the equal rights of all of society’s members as a precondition.

I think it is interesting to reflect on the cultural changes that have occurred over time in the United States. When I was a boy in the 60's, the principles of the UN charter were held in much higher esteem, and the organization itself possessed a lofty and stately allure. For example, some might remember the original version of Star Trek, which was a virtual paean to the United Nations ideal. Remember there was this thing called the "prime directive" that forbade the stellar wayfarers from interfering in the affairs of other people? Now certainly, part of the drama of the show was the continuing tension between the prime directive and the interventionist, improving impulse. But still, the prime directive was at least advanced as a solemn ideal, and the chief organizing principle of the "United Federation of Planets". I wonder how many contemporary liberals still have any regard at all for a “prime directive” or principle of nonintervention.

We can all be very grateful that we emerged from the Cold War having successfully avoided the mass incineration of large contingents of humanity. But that great success has come with one alarming cost. Because there was not a war, we seem to have a whole generation of Americans who have not learned to despise the scourge of war, and have not learned the tragic lesson of the easily actualized human potential for savagery and mass murder, even by the well-intentioned, and the strong presumption in favor of keeping the dogs of war chained up – even where we see some potential for good coming from dog attacks on evildoers.

Democracy, as practiced in the US, is based on negative rights or "freedom from", which have a direct linear relationship with property rights. As SCOTUS holds:

“the Due Process Clauses generally confers no affirmative right to governmental aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual.” DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Social Services

But in the rest of the world, as Dr. Jentleson points out, the affirmative rights, which include equity, justice and human security, are core values held by societies. This means that States would have positive obligations to promote and provide, at the least, medical care, adequate housing and fair wages with safe working conditions for all citizens.

Even the World Bank is finding that the traditional mix of economic policies and negative rights are not adequate for transitional or developing countries.

States that have very little capacity to maintain law and order, that are torn by endemic conflicts, or that treat its citizens unequally, based on ethnic, religious or racial criteria, are unlikely to deliver health, education and safety nets to their populace in a satisfactory way. [...]

A more holistic approach to social policy in development contexts, where markets are grossly imperfect and labor markets often incomplete, would seek to promote policies, institutions and programs that balance a concern for equity and social justice with the concern for economic growth.

In other words, free markets and negative rights as public policies do not work in most countries. And we can also argue, they did not work in New Orleans, either. New Orleans provides the perfect example that Democracy and free markets, without positive human rights, does not 'lift all boats'.

"You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fire." --George W. Bush, addressing war veterans, Wash, D.C., Jan. 10, 2006

Where are our liberal hawks...you know the ones that want a more muscular foreign policy...on the military coup in Thailand? Apparently the moment of moral clarity for them has passed. From Beinart nothing. From Peretz...stoke the war talk on Iran (Iran with its elections). From Witman...it is Chavez who must be removed. And Lieberman? He has not yet read the Bush talking points. We all heard from our liberal warhawks how the Republicans have given firm principle to American foreign policy. What now with a military coup in Thailand removing a leader who was characterized yesterday as one of the elected leaders in the Free World? Well today we read in the warhawks' press (Kurlantzick in TNR) that the military coup will not be worse than the elected leader:
www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060918&s=kurlantzick092006

How are we to understand our liberal warhawks? If democracy leads to American hegemony and domination it is good; otherwise take it out, democracy or no. And any opponents of this policy are the ultraleft, pacifist, hate America, nutroots.

In fact, many of Iran's actions have worked very well for the Bush administration. Funding and arming Hezbollah in a war against Israel, stoicly dismissing United Nations' charters on nuclear technology, and other bombastic forms of rhetoric from Ahamdinejad has done Iran very few favors.

This may be true from an ethnocentric, Western point of view. But in Iran, the people are united against US aggression:

The Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist who won the peace prize for her struggle for women's rights, warned Friday that the Iranian people would defend their country against any American attack.

"We will not allow an American soldier to set foot" in Iran, said Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. "We will defend our country till the last drop of blood." WaPo 4/21/06

"You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fire." --George W. Bush, addressing war veterans, Wash, D.C., Jan. 10, 2006

Reading many of the comments in this thread without preconception, I am left to wonder why you believe what you wrote is different from what many others in this thread said or implied. To the contrary, I think many in this thread agree with much of what you say

That was my first thought too. 

I think democracy is self promoting and needs no help.  As our founding fathers said "we find these truths to be self evident".  And if we feel a need to "promote" democracy then maybe "these truths" are far from self evident and then no amount of promotion will help.

Blessed with a stable two party system, we Americans tend to forget sometimes that those "democracies" which arose out of unstable circumstances have required one party rule (Japan's LDP) or a strongman (Adenauer in Germany or de Gaulle in France) or some form of authoritarianism (Taiwan, Korea, etc.) to achieve the stability democracy requires.

Where is the history of a democracy ever arising out of an unstable political or social situation?

After reading Lawrence Wright's article in the New Yorker on long-range Al Qaeda plans, I find myself wondering what is the difference from a "Martian" viewpoint, between the Christian Crusades, worldwide Jihad, and our current favorite, democracy promotion.

Avoiding the reflexive "but they're bloodthirsty terrorists" and other parochialisms, to announce to the world that you plan to alter their governments doesn't sound like a way to make friends. And if the goal of democracy promotion is to encourage friendly governments, why not just go directly to that goal?

Isn't our main argument against terrorism that it attempts forced change, not grass-roots civic organizing? Obviously violence is not a sufficient argument, since democracies use violence (albeit with a different style). Isn't the argument for democracy's superiority the organic nature of it?

If so, democracy promotion can't be any more muscular than PR plus some gentle economic pressure. Heavy-handed economic pressure is both coercive and damaging to individuals in the pressured country. Instigating or supporting in any way a coup against a government undercuts the meaning of democracy at the start. And it should be obvious that "liberating" wars are oxymoronic unless one means liberating one country being occupied by another (the meaning used in WW II, where we liberated France, but defeated Germany).

I'll vote for George Soros' model, and that's as far as we have a right to go.

Excellent comments on democracy promotion. Bruce is to be congratulated on sparking this debate. Provokes some further thoughts on the role of democracy promotion in a progressive foreign policy that I will post tomorrow.