Image taken from https://www.state.gov/secretary/
The Biden administration says “America is back,” and a central part of that is the return of democracy promotion.
Although the most successful representative democracy in history and the strongest supporter of democracy generally, America has a mixed record of democracy promotion. The most important criteria, in all cases, has been and will continue to be the strategic interests at stake, such as economic and geopolitical advantage. America largely dismissed democracy promotion, rhetorically and practically, under Trump, who viewed the world as populated by states that were either burdensome or useful to the United States.
It is unclear how much the Biden administration can or will do to promote democracy worldwide, although it is already evident that the language of democracy has returned to the White House. In Secretary Blinken’s first major address, he warned that “authoritarianism and nationalism are on the rise around the world” and argued the United States should defend democracy abroad while shoring it up at home. Blinken explained why democracy promotion is a priority for the Biden administration:
Because strong democracies are more stable, more open, better partners to us, more committed to human rights, less prone to conflict, and more dependable markets for our goods and services. When democracies are weak, governments can’t deliver for their people or a country becomes so polarized that it’s hard for anything to get done, they become more vulnerable to extremist movements from the inside and to interference from the outside. And they become less reliable partners to the United States. None of that is in our national interest.
The above suggests that the United States cannot and/or will not work with authoritarian countries. Of course, which countries are democratic and which are authoritarian are decided by the United States, and those that are not sufficiently democratic will be pressured to make changes. Blinken continues:
We will use the power of our example. We will encourage others to make key reforms, overturn bad laws, fight corruption, and stop unjust practices. We will incentivize democratic behavior. But we will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they haven’t worked. They’ve given democracy promotion a bad name, and they’ve lost the confidence of the American people. We will do things differently.
The United States is morally obligated to promote human rights. Which ones should be supported worldwide? All of them? And to what extent? While the West and its worldwide democratic partners largely agree on basic human rights, such as life, liberty, and the ability to freely practice religion, assemble, speak, and enjoy due process, Americans themselves disagree on what constitutes human rights. Liberals maintain abortion, living wages, health care, and housing, among other things, to be rights guaranteed by the government. Conservatives generally maintain rights to be limited to those listed in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, although there are debates about the extent of those rights in practice. Which ones should Americans export?
But the question of human rights is different from that of democracy, although the two are highly correlated. It is not the aim of the Biden administration to promote human rights; it is, rather, to promote democracy, a specific form of government. In all times, the United States is rightly obligated to pressure and punish countries that carry out ethnic cleansing, build concentration camps, and commit similar atrocities against human rights. It is entirely another thing, however, to pressure and punish countries that do not adopt similar styles of governance, especially those countries that are politically distant from the EU and other democratic allies.
And this is where the power of the democracy, and especially that of the United States, is faced with a conundrum. Democracy is built upon transparent rules and open debate. That is the way of life it was created to uphold. Yet democratic countries can obviously only do so much to promote these practices outside its borders. As Blinken stated above, the United States will no longer promote democracy through military interventions. Although it seems military interventions were not done to promote democracy but to end geopolitical threats, Blinken knows that democracies are limited in their abilities to promote their values abroad, especially when states like Russia and China offer strong challenges.
The ability of a country to export its style of governance is largely correlated with its power, both economic and military. Would the United States limit its chances to achieve its strategic interests by continuing to pressure countries to adopt democratic practices? Or could the United States eventually abandon its efforts at democracy promotion to better cooperate with countries it shares strategic interests with? As Bruno Macaes argues, the United States is losing power relative to other competitors and may move away from its liberal traditions to maintain primacy. The Trump administration recognized this and threw out democracy promotion; the Biden administration recognized it and added it back in.
The role of America in the world is something Americans have debated among themselves since the country’s founding. The promising aspect of a policy to promote democracy abroad is that it projects confidence in democratic values and a free way of life. It is a refusal to back down to alternative ways of governance that limit human rights and reduce American influence.
In the near future, the United States may have to grudgingly take John Quincy Adams’ advice from 1820:
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
What Adams advises is that the United States should adopt different strategies in different contexts. He does not mean the United States should refuse to fight its enemies. He does, however, suggest that Americans should not spread themselves too thin by promoting too much.
The question of what and how much to promote remains open.