US foreign policy and democracy promotion: in search of purpose

Bridoux, Jeff

doi:10.1177/0047117813489655b

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…There has been a vibrant discussion regarding the challenges and problems of implementing democratic state-building plans in actual contexts. The literature has pointed to strategic and policy-related mistakes and has debated the value democracy promotion and state-building offers to the United States ( Finkel, Perez-Linan, and Seligson 2007 ;Bridoux 2013 ;Cox, Lynch, and Bouchet 2013 ;Krasner 2021 ). Scholars identified deficiencies in the design and implementation of these interventions, such as the neglect to give due consideration to domestic processes of regime transition, and problems such as lack of domestic democratic support ( Harberson 1998 ;Dalacoura 2005 ;Craner and Wollack 2009 ;Jamal 2012 ), the neglect to consider the effect of the broader international system ( Jahn 2012 ), misinterpretations of how capitalism and democracy work together in a normative model (Kurki 2014), the high fiscal cost and the logistical and time commitments of this strategy ( Etzioni 2004 ), the misdirection of efforts toward strengthening elections and executive power at the expense of other important aspects of a functioning democracy ( Carothers 2007( Carothers , 2009Meyerrose 2020 ), and the failure to grasp how democracy, contestability, and state capacity develop or unravel together and, consequently, whether an intervention would strengthen human security or would increase the risk which societies face when they undergo such intervention ( Kurki 2010 ;Norris 2012 ).…”

Section: Dufek and Mochtak 2019 )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

Trantidis

2022

International Studies Review

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This paper criticizes the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model of political transitions according to which liberal democratic institutions will transform a hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into a more prosperous and stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions to establish these institutions are realistic and worthy investments, provided they are properly planned based on knowledge of what has worked elsewhere. This expectation is based upon two epistemological premises. The first premise, linearity, is that social and institutional change exhibits identifiable input–output relations connecting socioeconomic conditions and outcomes. The second premise, ergodicity, is that these relations, inferred from past samples, provide reliable probabilistic projections about future outcomes, which can guide the focus of policy interventions. Drawing from the study of complex systems, the paper indicates why these two premises offer a flawed conception of political transitions and why radical and large-scale interventions, such as state-building, will tend to generate unintended consequences rather than the planned effect.

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Section: Dufek and Mochtak 2019 )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

Trantidis

2022

International Studies Review

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“…While procedural democracy, political liberalism, and neoliberalism constitute the U.S.dominated world order (Brown 2006), those principles are bound to fail due to their fundamental contradictions (Bridoux 2013). What Trump's presidency and the rise of authoritarian populism reveal are exactly those inherent weaknesses of the global order's organizing logic.…”

Section: Human Rights Under the Neoliberal Trump Administrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Rights at Risk in the Era of Trump and American Decline

REGILME¹

2022

Human Rights at Risk

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Human rights and political freedoms have been under siege in quite unprecedented ways since the end of the Cold War. 1 Based on the Freedom House (2019) report, people from sixty-eight countries experienced severe deterioration in civil and political rights in 2018, while only fifty countries registered net improvements. In addition, the same report recorded a global deterioration of political freedoms for the previous thirteen consecutive years, from 2005 to 2018. While the post-Cold War era facilitated the emergence of liberal democracies worldwide, a considerable number of those countries that transitioned toward democratization have faced significant hurdles in consolidating their regimes. Similarly, CIVICUS (2019), a global consortium of civil society organizations, finds that a majority of countries worldwide have an "obstructed," or even worse "repressed," civic space, where political dissent against state abuses could flourish. 2 Globally, very few countries have an "open" civic space, many of which are located in Northern Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand. In the entire American continent, only four countries have an "open" civic space classification, namely, Canada, Uruguay, Suriname, and Costa Rica. Accordingly, the civic space in the United States, however, deteriorated and "narrowed" under the Trump administration. Particularly, the Human Rights Watch (2019, 1) report maintains that the United States has "continued to move backward on human rights at home and abroad in the second year of former president Donald Trump's administration," which "were able to pass laws, implement regulations, and carry out policies that violate or undermine human rights."This perception of decline in the U.S. government's commitment to human rights becomes more worrying, especially when we consider the U.S. government's long-standing reliance on human rights and humanitarian discourses to justify and to legitimize its foreign policy interventions abroad (Forsythe 2011). Many of these so-called humanitarian actions have generated enormous damage to human

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“…While procedural democracy, political liberalism, and neoliberalism constitute the USdominated world order (Brown 2006), those principles are bound to fail due to its fundamental contradictions (Bridoux 2013). What Trump's presidency and the rise of authoritarian populism reveal are exactly those inherent weaknesses of the global order's organizing logic.…”

Section: Human Rights In the Era Of Authoritarian Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decline of American power and Donald Trump: Reflections on human rights, neoliberalism, and the world order

Regilme

2019

Geoforum

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Is American power in decline? What is the relationship between the perceived decline of American power and the rise of Donald Trump and authoritarian politics elsewhere? Understanding the puzzle of American decline and the world order requires the recognition of how capital and wealth are unjustly distributed, entrenched, and sustained across the society. The core argument here maintains that American decline pertains not only to the decreasing economic vitality underscored by the concrete detrimental effects generated through sharpening material inequality within the US. Rather, decline also constitutes its decreasing appeal and legitimacy as a dominant actor in the international system. This paper contributes to current scholarly and policy debates on American power and authoritarianism in three ways. First, it offers a more holistic conception of American power, particularly by highlighting both its materialist and ideational foundations that co-constitute each other during its periods of ascent, consolidation, and decline. Second, it underscores the mutually reinforcing interdependence of domestic and transnational dimensions of US power. Third, while dominant scholarship on American decline rarely address its implications on international human rights, the paper highlights the uniqueness of the Trump presidency and the emerging authoritarian politics elsewhere: while neoliberalism's detrimental consequences to human rights within and beyond the US constitute a relatively long history, Trump and his allies have abandoned the legitimation tactics that their predecessors had so willingly used. Highlights: • American power constitutes the mutually reinforcing relationship of domestic conditions as well as transformative changes in the international system-an insight often ignored in dominant International Relations scholarship on American decline. • The decline of American power constitutes its decreasing appeal and legitimacy as a dominant actor in the international system. • Examining the status of American power includes its material position and legitimation tactics within the United States and in the international system. • While neoliberalism's detrimental consequences to human rights preceded the Trump administration, currently emerging discourses have abandoned the legitimation tactics that Trump's predecessors had so willingly used.

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US foreign policy and democracy promotion: in search of purpose

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

Human Rights at Risk in the Era of Trump and American Decline

The decline of American power and Donald Trump: Reflections on human rights, neoliberalism, and the world order

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