David Clinton

American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts

Introduction PART I: US DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN THEORY 1. Peace, Liberty and Democracy: Realists and Liberals Contest a Legacy 2. US Democracy Promotion: Realist Reflections 3. US Democracy Promotion: Critical Questions PART II: DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS US GRAND STRATEGY? 4. National Security Liberalism and American Foreign Policy 5. Americas Liberal Grand Strategy: Democracy and National Security in the Post-War Era 6. Americas Identity, Democracy Promotion and National Interests: Beyond Realism, Beyond Idealism PART III: US DEMOCRACY PROMOTION: THE DOMESTIC CONTEXT 7. Promotion of Democracy as a Popular Demand? 8. Taking Stock of US Democracy Assistance 9. High Stakes and Low Intensity Democracy: Understanding Americas Policy of Promoting Democracy 10. Wilsonianism Resurgent? The Clinton Administration and the Promotion of Democracy PART IV: US DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN PRACTICE 11. Russia: Limping along towards American Democracy? 12. Three Frameworks in Search of a Policy: US Democracy Promotion in Asia-Pacific 13. The Impasse of Third World Democratization: Africa Revisited 14. Promoting Capitalist Polyarchy: The Case of Latin America 15. American Power, Neo-Liberal Globalization and Low Intensity Democracy: an Unstable Trinity

The Distinction between Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in American International Thought and Practice

Throughout his writings, Harold Nicolson advocates a distinction between ‘policy’ (to be subject to democratic control) and ‘negotiation’ (to remain the province of professional diplomatists), preferring to separate these two quite different activities, rather than lumping them together under the general term ‘diplomacy’ (an intermingling that he found conceptually muddled and politically impossible to sustain once general public opinion becomes politically mobilized). Nicholas Murray Butler and George Kennan, who may be taken as representing idealist and realist American opinion in the twentieth century, found themselves at one in rejecting Nicolson’s distinction. Butler believed that the progressive enlightenment of public opinion, resulting in the attainment of the ‘international mind’, would improve both the formulation of policy and the conduct of negotiations; Kennan deprecated public opinion, at least in the United States, as irredeemably clumsy and ill-informed, and was convinced that this domestic political force would not be satisfied with directing policy, but would insist on interfering with negotiation as well. Across the board, American opinion seems to be hostile to Nicolson’s differentiation. This rejection of Nicolson’s view illustrates a more general influence of distinctively American thinking about international relations on American attitudes towards, and expectations of, diplomacy.

Dash and doubt walter Bagehot and international restraint

Walter Bagehot was Victorian Britains premier political commentator on and analyst of the operation of governmental institutions and practices. He also wrote prolifically on international affairs, though this aspect of his work has been less remarked on. His attitude of quietism in foreign policy derived from his belief that, although in domestic affairs the age of government by custom and coercion had been succeeded-in certain developed countries, at any rate-by the practice of government through reasoned debate and compromise, in the relations among nations difficulties of communication caused by differences of worldview continued to make international relations the realm of power clashes marked by mutual misunderstandings. His response was to urge his country to have as little as possible to do with this more primitive arena of politics; and his warnings remain a classic statement of the dangers of unintended consequences and overly ambitious activity.

Wilsonianism and the sweep of American foreign policy history

The contention of this essay is that Wilsonianism has rested in part on a conviction that popular government, government responsible to the people, is right and that it is also advantageous to the United States in that popular governments will by nature be peaceful members of international society, thereby allowing the US to live in peace. However, there are tensions within Wilsonianism itself which compromise that hope when pursued through international institutions.

Nicholas Murray Butler and “The International Mind” as the Pathway to Peace

The war had reinforced for Butler that the legalization of international relations was on the rise and the role of war was in decline, tamed by its subjection to law. However, Butler added that the development and use of what today we call the practice of “public diplomacy” was also required. In addition, Butler sought binding arbitration and defended a robust system of collective security. Yet all these institutional mechanisms rested on a more fundamental necessity—the creation of what he called “the international mind.” Engendered by liberal values, the international mind is best conceived as a cooperative and generous attitude in the settling of international disagreement. Enlightened world public opinion at work within the nation states of international society would be the carrier of international mind, its diplomacy working to bolster international law through compelling the compliance of nation states.

Rethinking human rights for the new millennium

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International Obligations: To Whom Are They Owed?

Much of what states do in the international system they do as a response to their perceived obligations, commitments, or responsibilities. Not all of these obligations are owed to the same sort of recipient, however: some may be owed to other identifiable parties with whom one has arrived at a bargain or an exchange of benefits, but obligations may also be owed to a chosen rule of conduct or guide to action, as in the case of deterrence, and to oneself, as in the case of selfpreservation or ones sense of honor. All three types of international obligation have been recognized in international law and practice, but no one of the three categories encompasses all the duties of states. A complete understanding of international relations requires attention to all three parties to which international obligations may be owed.

Tocqueville on democracy, obligation, and the international system

The name of Alexis de Tocqueville is not generally associated with the study of international relations. Social analyst, political thinker, and informed commentator on the fundamental intellectual currents of his age, he left to others the illumination for posterity of the states-system in the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet, while he was not primarily concerned with foreign affairs, he did not ignore them. Some of the most famous passages in Democracy in America point to the capacities, or incapacities, of democracies in conducting foreign policy. His service in the Chamber of Deputies under the Orleanist Monarchy and in the Legislative Assembly under the Second Republic from 1839 to 1851 brought him into contact with the foreign and colonial questions of the day; it was he who largely wrote the reports of two committees on which he served during those years, dealing with the abolition of slavery in Frances West Indian possessions and French military and colonial policy in Algeria. The highest post—and sole Cabinet responsibility—he attained in this world of practical politics was that of Foreign Minister in 1849.