DP is an advertising slogan. We've "supported" with money or at least, cheered on the post-Marcos and post-Milosevic and the Orange, Rose, and Cedar Revolutions. The results are unimpressive.

At this point our efforts should not be directed at promoting the next elitist enthusiasm -- "Good Governance" -- but at killing the DP vampire and making sure it stays killed.

This is one of those rare occasions when I want to go back and rate something "4" twice. You put DP where it belongs. Advertising deals not with what something actually is, but what its vendors want to you think it is. DP is just that. We squandered our "sincerity" a long time ago.

Furthermore.....

In the current NY Review John Gray diagnoses
Bush's policies in general and foreign
policy in particular as "millenarian" - "American power can re used to rid the world of evil". "A faith- based foreign policy in which the identification and correction of errors play hardly any part ".

Mutatis mutandi DP is progressive millenarianism.

If other nations in the "gray area" that you speak of respect international law, have open markets, and are responsible with their military, the United States should accept this as being close enough to Democracy.

Does the US have a "Responsibility" to practice what it preaches?

"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

The whole premise of this thing here is the Fukuyama thesis that Democracy is in fact the end point in political history for mankind.
Just to randomly pick a few "flaws" in modern democracy: with the advent of mass media and the "science" of controlling what the "masses think" it is not at all clear what the "will of the people" really refers to. In this environment the will of the people can be molded like soft clay given enough media manipulation and thought control. It winds up that one of the ideals of democracy: rule of the unobstructed pure Will of the majority of people is just an illusion along with such quaint idea of a Philosopher King.
I say let us examine what Democracy really has amounted to in, say, America. It has resulted in such things as the poor and uneducated people spending billions of dollars in lottery tickets when they can't put food on the table. It has resulted in the average undereducated person winding up up to his eyeballs in debt to the banks and mortgage lenders. It has resulted in the absurdity of people being offered gas-guzzling Hummers for endless monthly payments of $299, at a time when gas prices will have no other way to go but up. It has bought us the reprioritizing of educating our citizens since an educated citizenry is bad for business. It has bought us rampant sex and violence and drugs shoved down our kids throats by the "free media" because it is good business. No thanks; I don't think this type of Democracy is the end of history although it may well result in the end of humanity as we know it.

It's hard to see Bush as an exception.
His administration may be a little bit extreme, but not radically different from other. U.S.-instigated coups d'état is an old tradition overthrowing (more or less) democratic governments, often replaced by military juntas more keen on human rights abuse than on rule of law or democratic liberties.

For more on the damage this has done to America's standing, see for instance Julia Sweig's work.

U.S.-instigated coups d'état is an old tradition overthrowing (more or less) democratic governments

Or ,to be fair , sometimes horrible governments .

But what makes us think we can tell which is which? Or have the altruism to assist them without trying to do what's best for us rather than what's best for them ?

No Cunegonda , this is not the best of all possible countries. It's a "good enough" country but one with astonishing faults largely unrecognized by its citizens.

 A country , losing the ability to manufacture its own goods ; with a health system admired from afar , including by vast numbers of its own citizens who die because they can't afford its wonders ; with renowned and expensive universities available to the wealthy and public secondary education so inadequate that the poor couldn't qualify for them anyway ; with a murder rate approaching urban South Africa - despite our almost unique use of the death penalty ;and a government which was neither able to prevent 9/11 nor notice the TV screen showing 20,000 desperate refugees at the New Orleans Convention Center ; possibly because of an electoral system which resulted in choosing the president who was rejected by the majority of the voters ; or at least a majority of those who were permitted to vote and had that vote counted.

Makes you wonder if we actually need to look abroad for candidates for DP.

Are there worse countries -you bet. And also ones whose citizens would never think of leaving Toronto , or Oslo ,or Antwerp or in fact most of much deprecated Old Europe . And rightly so.

The US doesn't respect international law. We should start there. Anybody watch Frist this morning on ABC incoherently tell us how we're saving international law from European interpretation? How do we promote democracy when we don't have faith in any of them including our own?

me: U.S.-instigated coups d'état is an old tradition overthrowing (more or less) democratic governments.

flavius:
Or, to be fair, sometimes horrible governments.

In the context of Democracy Promotion maybe coups replacing democracies with authoritarian or semi-fascist dictatorships are the most relevant. But, yes, some coups and other kinds of regime changes have been directed against anti-democrats, alas the outcome hasn't been particularly democratic!

Bush's administration remains true to America's traditions.

But the rubber really meets the road when you have to make those inevitable trade-offs between DP on the one hand, and on the other, preventing terrorism, promoting fair trade, advancing environmental protection, getting votes in the UN, etc. It's fun to pretend the trade-offs don't exist; alas, outside of blogs, in the real world, they really do. Even in a progressive foreign policy.

Translation: Democracy Promotion is important, except when its not important.

This is the sort of exceptionalist hypocrisy that really helps to drag America's credibility down to the gutter.

Perhaps America should concentrate on promoting Democracy in the United States. Sadly, there too, Democracy is important, except when its not.

As a final observation, I've been noticing for years the weird sexualization of American political dialogue. It's good to be 'HARD' on Iraq, America must be 'FIRM', it had to 'GO INTO' Iraq and it must 'STAY IN' for the duration. It would be 'soft' to 'pull out'. Foreign policy must be 'TOUGH AND MUSCULAR', etc. etc.

And now Democracy Promotion is described as DP (Double Penetration). I can't wait to find out what acronyms come into play to make BJ, MTA, GB etc.

Seriously, its not funny. It's just weird and disturbing.

We also should be clear about denouncing governments that respect only the forms of elections and do not respect the sovereignty of the electorate (Iraq, Iran).

America?

When you speak of Iraq, I would have assumed you were speaking of Saddam's Iraq. But do you comments also extend to the current occupied Iraq where there is overwhelming evidence of direct and indirect American manipulation of the electoral/political process including:

... cancelling and rescinding the results of municipal elections;

... creating a national 'list' based electoral system which did not even support individual candidates;

... suspending that initial election's vote counting for three days to deal with 'irregularities' and then producing a result in which the Religious Shia proportion of the vote seemed to go form 56% to 48%;

... massively funding Allawi and allowing him to monopolize, or monopolizing on his behalf, access to state radio and television, whilst imposing various handicaps on his rivals;

... interfering to prevent the selection of a Prime Minister who had majority support, and the imposition of another rival.

As for Iran, while it is clear that the Mullahs interfere with those candidates cleared to run, it is also clear that Ahminajad won fair and square over his more moderate and progressive rivals. Certain candidates on the left and liberal side were prevented from running. Nevertheless, moderates did run. Ahminajad trounced them all in no uncertain terms, and by a clear majority. So isn't that a situation of the sovereignty of the electorate?

I'm not sure when the current sexual meaning of BJ entered general usage, but if it is either reassuring or not, one of the early code names used by the WWII British for cryptanalyzed German messages was Black Jumbo.

Black Jumbo was usually abbreviated to its initials. ULTRA (and, for that matter, RABID and DEXTER) came much later.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Bumper sticker seen today:

Be Nice To America Or We'll Bring Democracy To Your Country