Democracy Promotion in the Age of Obama

Over the past several years, democracy promotion has stood at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. The Bush administration's Freedom Agenda brought increased resources for promoting democracy overseas and created new programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation, geared toward spurring democracy and encouraging good governance.

Unfortunately, the Freedom Agenda has not only failed to fulfill its promise, it has likely set back America's democratization agenda. While the inauguration of Barack Obama has brought with it great hope of a new approach to democracy-related issues, signs so far are unclear.

To date there is still no head of USAID or an undersecretary for democracy, human rights and labor at the State Department and the rhetoric on democracy has been decidedly turned down. Is the country exhausted from trying to promote freedom overseas and will the cause of democratization take a back seat under an Obama Administration? Will the Congress have to take the lead by finally rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act and pushing the Administration to fix what has become an overly fragmented and unwieldy foreign assistance bureaucracy? And after the challenges of the past eight years, what principles and objectives of democratization should be influencing this policy debate?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Democracy
• Promotion
• Foreign
• Policy
• Failed
• Rising
• States
• Obama

[ngonea]

You could just bomb the U.S. into Demon-cracy like you do around the world. Libya, Afganistan, Iraq, Congo,etc.

[superiorgreen]

These people hope to change US foreign policy OUTSIDE the constitutional structure of America, by working outside the government.

[sweetcbt]

blah blah blah blah blah. How about promoting honesty, ethics and just good sense. This is just a bunch of empty words. Let's get ourselves in line, instead of worrying about other countries. Have you noticed..America is in jeapardy while theorists theorize. blah blah blah.

[hartejoseph]

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[dimadima2007]

Thanx for posting this, i attended the event, i would loved if it was longer, but it s good