America's policy of promoting democracy since World War II

¶ … successful has America's policy of promoting democracy been since Word War II?

After the Second World War, the U.S. gained hegemony over the rest of the world nations that decisively contributed to its hegemony in the foreign relations. Its implication in supporting by direct or indirect means became massive and activated on all continents. The most direct way to asses the success of the U.S. In promoting democracy among the state nations is to look at the statistical data and draw conclusions based on facts. but, the implications and the means used by the U.S. along the years are far more complex and sometimes more vague or not yet revealed to the public and therefore conclusions based on statistical results would be accurate in numbers but maybe far reality.

The world changed dramatically after the Second World War and the shift from a colonial form of domination of the empire states toward more and more separation and individualism for the world states. The struggle became one between political stability that implied economic stability and the possibility to develop and enter the global economy that started to boost after the war, under the reconstruction efforts of nations supported b the marshal plan or by their own efforts to surpass the war experience and the losses they suffered through the war.

One of the means used by the U.S. To support democracy or rise and stabilization of a democratic system of government was by direct military intervention. Paradoxically, the reinstallation of democracy needed the force of arms sometimes, until further more sophisticated and less brutal means were to be developed. Robert Art, cited by Meernik (1996, pg 393) sustains the idea of using rather different means than those by sheer force: " the aim of spreading democracy around the globe... can too easily become a license for indiscriminate and unending U.S. military interventions in the internal affairs of others"(Meernik, 1996, pg. 393).

Meernik analyses the twenty seven cases of U.S. military intervention between the 1950 and 1990, starting with the Koreean War and the intervention for the security in Yugoslavia and ending with the Gulf War, using statistical data first to draw a conclusion regarding the degree of success of democracy ratings change. At a first glance, the success in percentage seems almost inexistent. Meernik is taking into account as the primary goals of these interventions either democracy support or "maintenance of a legitimate government" (Meernik, 1996, pg. 396). On the other hand, when comparing countries that experienced changes in the democracy rate without U.S. military intervention to those who had the U.S. military support, Meernik reaches the conclusion that the former were less successful in the increase of ratings of democracy than those who were supported in their movements toward democracy by the U.S. intervention. Meernik also emphasizes a correlation between the declaration of a U.S. president related to the goal of a U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of a foreign nation and the results in succeeding in installing a democratic regime in the respective country.

On the other hand, according to Robinson, the U.S. relied mostly on the authoritarian regimes although "the theme of "democracy" was...emphasized again in the 1950s as a central tenet of the Truman and Eisenhower administration, as well as in the 1960s by Kennedy and Johnson administrations"(Robinson, 1996). Robinson sustains the idea that a change in the policy making of the U.S. In relationship to the foreign affairs toward the promotion of democracy first appeared in the mid 1980s. The most important factor, according to Robinson was the world economy on its successful way to globalization.

According to Robinson, democracy promotion from the U.S. foreign affairs policy making point-of-view means "polyarchy promotion." Democracy is more an ideal and controversial concept and thus Robinson chooses the term polyarchy to b more appropriate in the matter of U.S. foreign policy making. Robinson uses the theory developed by Huntington in the substitution of the term democracy with the more appropriate and closer to the realities of the post World War II world. A polyachic governed society is a society where elites are trusted with the power invested by the masses who participate in open, free elections to invest in one elite or the other that will govern as a small group for a limited amount of time under the scrutiny of opposition elites and state institutions, while the social economic circumstances remain the same. Another author who is citing Robinson and his support of the theory of polyarchy promotion of the U.S. policy making is Jason Ralph. Ralph is sustaining the point-of-view that polyarchic systems supported by the U.S. will thus enter the international economic arena, opening the door for foreign investments. The primary reason, beside that of enforcing stability is therefore the self-interest in economic development of a free-market capitalism that is "neither democratic nor necessarily in the interests of America"(Ralph, 2001, pg. 130).

Ralph concludes his article with the idea that an analysis of the U.S. foreign policy making after the Second World War must take into account the democracy per se is not necessarily a sign of overall success in supporting the change in a countries regime and its replacement with another. The opinions regarding the success of U.S. operations in supporting the promotion of democracy in foreign countries are restrained in enthusiasm by the evidence of what open or tacit involvement in internal wars the countries around the world went through, meant for the U.S. In the amount of material, human or government credibility losses. Meernik concludes his study of the statistical data that U.S. military interventions do not end in increasing the level of democracy, although countries that experienced U.S. intervention are more likely to impose the democratic level compared to those that didn't" (Meernik, 1996).

The U.S. role in the world politics after the World War II was assessed and reassessed each time U.S. chose to intervene in a country, especially when it involved military force. There are similarities between the various cases of foreign policy making and there are elements that make the U.S. intervention different in reaching conclusions regarding its ability to have made the right decision, each time, with each intervention. The means of sustaining and helping imposing a change in the political system of government of one country have evolved over the years and became more complex and apparently more effective. The economic and military aid was accompanied by the political aid that supplied instruments far more reaching into the core of a society than the previous two. They remained necessary in this matter, but were completed by a tool that created opportunities to reach the grass roots of a country and thus to help change one authoritarian regime with another more democratic without the use of violence and in the tight control of those who helped groom the new elite that was to replace dictatorship. The experiences accumulated by the U.S. starting with the end of the Secod World War and up until today, along with its international partners and institutions that backed up its foreign policy transformed not only parts of the world, but also changed the theories dealing with policy making in the spirit of democracy promotion.

A different and completing opinion on the subject of U.S. military intervention expresses Karin von Hippel in her book: Democracy by Force: U.S. Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World. She argues that over six years, between 1990 and 1996, from the ninety eight conflicts of military nature, only seven were between states. The rest that were domestic ones would necessitate an intervention of some form from foreign powers and the U.S. intervened in a considerable number of them. The cases where military force was the last and single instrument of coercing them into staying or finding the right path to civil rights and democratic regimes also brought along the question of how to help them rebuild the country after the conflict. The cases of Japan and Germany should be illustrative, but somehow they cannot be applied at a larger scale and in such a big number of conflicts simply because the means to do it are not endless. According to Robinson, between World War II and 1990, there were $400 billion spent in foreign military and economic aid.(Robinson, 1996). The case of post war experience in Iraq is relevant in this subject when considering the immense efforts of all kinds the U.S. And the UN spent and are still spending to keep relative stability in the region and help the new government rule the country.

The relatively new mean developed in the last decades in the intervention of the U.S. In the internal affairs of a foreign country proved successful so far in the central and east European countries. The political guidance a new kind of elite receives from the U.S. aims at making it determine internal shifts in the collective consciousness of a country without the use of force and from under the grassroots not from above them.

The conditions during the Cold War period were exceptional and they asked for rather exceptional measures. The foreign policy of the U.S., as a hegemonic power of the world was under a tremendous amount of pressure. On one hand there were the fear of the worst possible enemies of democracy: communism and the fear of the atomic war that could have destroyed the world in minutes and on the other hand there were the economic factors that influenced a great deal of the U.S. policy making on the international arena and its role as the impartial judge in conflicts around the globe. The dream of helping building a democratic world where peace and justice, especially, social justice were at home were left in the utopian societies described in the books. The realities of the twentieth and the approaching twenty first Century were much more practical and lacked the romantic spirit of "democracy for everyone, at all costs."