Exporting 'Made In America' Democracy

Exporting 'Made In America' Democracy examines the various contradictory tensions that democracy-promotion produces in the context of an increasingly capitalist globalization of the world that has accelerated in the post-Cold War period and into the 21st century. According to the author, the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (1945-1991) brought the question of democracy to the forefront of modern political debate, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet model was in part a consequence of the U.S. projection of its own capitalist democracy as a model to be exported and emulated throughout the world. Cavell argues the promise of democracy, as an Enlightenment ideal, has been to transcend the dichotomy of ruler and ruled by establishing self-rule of the people themselves as the normative basis of governance in the modern world. To the contrary, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is promoting a market-oriented democracy benefiting corporate interests, which enhance U.S. economic and political hegemony.

Exporting 'Made In America' Democracy examines the various contradictory tensions that democracy-promotion produces in the context of an increasingly capitalist globalization of the world that has accelerated in the post-Cold War period and into the 21st century.

Colin S. Cavell is Assistant Professor in the American Studies Program at the University of Bahrain in the Kingdom of Bahrain.