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Author: Thomas Carothers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democratization
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Upon taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama inherited a democracy promotion policy badly damaged from its prior association with the war in Iraq and with forcible regime change more generally. The Bush years had also seen a decline in America's reputation as a global symbol of democracy and human rights as well as rising fears of a broader democratic recession in the world. The new president and his foreign policy team responded at first by stepping back from the issue, softening U.S. rhetoric on promoting freedom abroad, and taking steps to rebuild America's democratic standing. Contributing to this de-emphasis, President Obama undertook a broader effort to improve U.S. diplomatic engagement with a variety of nondemocratic governments, in Iran, Russia, and elsewhere. These initial moves triggered alarm and criticism from parts of the U.S. foreign policy community. Starting in the second half of 2009, the pendulum swung toward greater U.S. engagement on democracy. Senior U.S. officials began to speak more regularly and forcefully on democracy and human rights. Like its predecessors, the administration was pulled into prodemocracy diplomacy as a result of democratic breakdowns or breakthroughs around the world, from Honduras and South Sudan to Belarus and Cote d'Ivoire. The Obama team also began to stake out its own approach to democracy policy, emphasizing multilateral engagement and various initiatives to bolster the broader normative and institutional framework for democracy support. The Obama team's overall engagement on democracy support is multifaceted and significant, and is rooted in a set of guiding principles that have helped revitalize the U.S. profile on the topic. At the same time, the administration downplays democracy and human rights in a number of nondemocratic countries for the sake of other interests. This inconsistency represents a familiar pattern rather than a change in U.S. policy. The difference is that today, in response to growing multipolarity, the United States has moved away from any single, overarching foreign policy narrative rooted in the idea of remaking the world in the image of the United States. Debates about whether this new narrative is appropriate will figure in the partisan debates over foreign policy in the unfolding U.S. presidential campaign. Yet it is important to remember that most U.S. democracy engagement around the world is a matter of bipartisan agreement and to stay focused on the less visible but crucial issues that will bolster the credibility and power of U.S. democracy promotion in the future.
Author: Thomas Carothers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democratization
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Upon taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama inherited a democracy promotion policy badly damaged from its prior association with the war in Iraq and with forcible regime change more generally. The Bush years had also seen a decline in America's reputation as a global symbol of democracy and human rights as well as rising fears of a broader democratic recession in the world. The new president and his foreign policy team responded at first by stepping back from the issue, softening U.S. rhetoric on promoting freedom abroad, and taking steps to rebuild America's democratic standing. Contributing to this de-emphasis, President Obama undertook a broader effort to improve U.S. diplomatic engagement with a variety of nondemocratic governments, in Iran, Russia, and elsewhere. These initial moves triggered alarm and criticism from parts of the U.S. foreign policy community. Starting in the second half of 2009, the pendulum swung toward greater U.S. engagement on democracy. Senior U.S. officials began to speak more regularly and forcefully on democracy and human rights. Like its predecessors, the administration was pulled into prodemocracy diplomacy as a result of democratic breakdowns or breakthroughs around the world, from Honduras and South Sudan to Belarus and Cote d'Ivoire. The Obama team also began to stake out its own approach to democracy policy, emphasizing multilateral engagement and various initiatives to bolster the broader normative and institutional framework for democracy support. The Obama team's overall engagement on democracy support is multifaceted and significant, and is rooted in a set of guiding principles that have helped revitalize the U.S. profile on the topic. At the same time, the administration downplays democracy and human rights in a number of nondemocratic countries for the sake of other interests. This inconsistency represents a familiar pattern rather than a change in U.S. policy. The difference is that today, in response to growing multipolarity, the United States has moved away from any single, overarching foreign policy narrative rooted in the idea of remaking the world in the image of the United States. Debates about whether this new narrative is appropriate will figure in the partisan debates over foreign policy in the unfolding U.S. presidential campaign. Yet it is important to remember that most U.S. democracy engagement around the world is a matter of bipartisan agreement and to stay focused on the less visible but crucial issues that will bolster the credibility and power of U.S. democracy promotion in the future.
Author: Michael Cox
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135917965
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
The promotion of democracy by the United States became highly controversial during the presidency of George W. Bush. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were widely perceived as failed attempts at enforced democratization, sufficient that Barack Obama has felt compelled to downplay the rhetoric of democracy and freedom in his foreign-policy. This collection seeks to establish whether a democracy promotion tradition exists, or ever existed, in US foreign policy, and how far Obama and his predecessors conformed to or repudiated it. For more than a century at least, American presidents have been driven by deep historical and ideological forces to conceive US foreign policy in part through the lens of democracy promotion. Debating how far democratic aspirations have been realized in actual foreign policies, this book draws together concise studies from many of the leading academic experts in the field to evaluate whether or not these efforts were successful in promoting democratization abroad. They clash over whether democracy promotion is an appropriate goal of US foreign policy and whether America has gained anything from it. Offering an important contribution to the field, this work is essential reading for all students and scholars of US foreign policy, American politics and international relations.
Author: Shahram Akbarzadeh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041552055X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were packaged as democracy promotion, as heralding the beginning of a new phase in the politics of the Middle East when democracy would replace authoritarian regimes. Many of these authoritarian regimes, however, were sustained by US support.
Author: Phil Kerpen
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
ISBN: 193666139X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
Democracy Denied by Americans for Prosperity vice president Phil Kerpen is a guide to understanding and defeating the radical agenda that President Barack Obama is implementing by unilateral regulatory action through his agencies and czars. Democracy Denied exposes the Obama administration's agenda that disregards the American people, Congress, and the U.S. Constitution—and offers a plan of action to stop it.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democratization
Languages : en
Pages : 8
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Book Description
The Bush's administration's highly problematic legacy on democracy promotion and general pessimism about the global state of democracy create pressure on the Obama administration to pull the United States substantially back from supporting democracy abroad. Although dissociating U.S. democracy support from the errors of the Bush approach is crucial, a broad realist corrective of U.S. policy is not necessary. The way forward for Obama will be more about changing how the United States goes about supporting democracy abroad than about what emphasis to place on democracy relative to other interests. Cardinal values of Obama's political philosophy and style -- non-confrontational, measured, persistent, bipartisan, cooperative, effective, and empowering -- provide a natural basis for a new framework to help the United States regain its place as a respected, trusted, and influential ally of democracy around the world.
Author: Theda Skocpol
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610447115
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 457
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Book Description
During his winning presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to counter rising economic inequality and revitalize America's middle-class through a series of wide-ranging reforms. His transformational agenda sought to ensure affordable healthcare; reform the nation's schools and make college more affordable; promote clean and renewable energy; reform labor laws and immigration; and redistribute the tax burden from the middle class to wealthier citizens. The Wall Street crisis and economic downturn that erupted as Obama took office also put U.S. financial regulation on the agenda. By the middle of President Obama's first term in office, he had succeeded in advancing major reforms by legislative and administrative means. But a sluggish economic recovery from the deep recession of 2009, accompanied by polarized politics and governmental deadlock in Washington, DC, have raised questions about how far Obama's promised transformations can go. Reaching for a New Deal analyzes both the ambitious domestic policy of Obama's first two years and the consequent political backlash—up to and including the 2010 midterm elections. Reaching for a New Deal opens by assessing how the Obama administration overcame intense partisan struggles to achieve legislative victories in three areas—health care reform, federal higher education loans and grants, and financial regulation. Lawrence Jacobs and Theda Skocpol examine the landmark health care bill, signed into law in spring 2010, which extended affordable health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans after nearly 100 years of failed legislative attempts to do so. Suzanne Mettler explains how Obama succeeded in reorienting higher education policy by shifting loan administration from lenders to the federal government and extending generous tax tuition credits. Reaching for a New Deal also examines the domains in which Obama has used administrative action to further reforms in schools and labor law. The book concludes with examinations of three areas—energy, immigration, and taxes—where Obama's efforts at legislative compromises made little headway. Reaching for a New Deal combines probing analyses of Obama's domestic policy achievements with a big picture look at his change-oriented presidency. The book uses struggles over policy changes as a window into the larger dynamics of American politics and situates the current political era in relation to earlier pivotal junctures in U.S. government and public policy. It offers invaluable lessons about unfolding political transformations in the United States.
Author: Abraham F. Lowenthal
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 081570352X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
The Obama administration inherits a daunting set of domestic and international policy challenges. It would be tempting to put Latin America and the Caribbean on the back burner, for their nations pose no imminent security threat nor do they seem at first blush critical to the most pressing problems of U.S. foreign policy. The Obama Administration and the Americas, however, argues that the new administration should focus early and strategically on Latin America. Our neighbors to the south impact daily on the lives of U.S. citizens, on issues such as energy, narcotics, immigration, trade, and jobs. And these are the countries most likely to partner with Washington on the basis of shared values, culture, and interests. Recognized experts from Latin America, the United States, and Europe suggest in this timely volume that the United States should seize an early opportunity to engage Latin America, recognizing the region's diversity but also its shared concerns and aspirations. The consolidation of stable democracies and rule of law in Latin America has long been an expressed goal of both parties in Washington, but the backlash from Iraq, the global financial crisis, and other recent experiences may discourage the use of U.S. influence and assistance to nurture democratic governance. The authors emphasize case-by-case, sophisticated, and multilateral approaches to dealing with such hard cases as Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and Venezuela.
Author: Edward Ashbee
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319410334
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
This edited volume considers the extent to which the Obama presidency matched the promises of hope and change that were held out in the 2008 election. Contributors assess the character of “change” and, within this context, survey the extent to which there was enduring change within particular policy areas, both domestic and foreign. The authors combine empirical detail with more speculative assessment of the limits and possibilities of change amidst a very dense institutional landscape and in an era of intense political polarization. Some see significant changes, the full consequences of which may only be evident in later years. Other authors in the collection present a markedly different picture and suggest that processes of change were not only limited and partial but at times leading the US in directions far removed from the promises of 2008. The book will make an important contribution to the debates about the Obama legacy.
Author: Annika Elena Poppe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042962137X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
This book explores the often assumed but so far not examined proposition that a particular U.S. culture influences U.S. foreign policy behavior or, more concretely, that widely shared basic assumptions embraced by members of the U.S. administration have a notable impact on foreign policy-making. Publicly professed beliefs regarding America’s role in the world and about democracy’s universal appeal – despite much contestation – go to the heart of U.S. national identity. Employing extensive foreign policy text analysis as well as using the case study of U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relations during the Clinton, Bush junior, and Obama administrations, it shows that basic assumptions matter in U.S. democracy promotion in general, and the book operationalizes them in detail as well as employs qualitative content analysis to assess their validity and variation. The research presented lies at the intersection of International Relations, U.S. foreign policy, regional studies, and democracy promotion. The specific focus on the domestic ‘cultural’ angle for the study of foreign policy and this dimension’s operationalization makes it a creative crossover study and a unique contribution to these overlapping fields.
Author: Elizabeth McKenna
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199394598
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Much has been written about the historic nature of the Obama campaign. The multi-year, multi-billion dollar operation elected the nation's first black president, raised and spent more money than any other election effort in history, and built the most sophisticated voter targeting technology ever before used on a national campaign. What is missing from most accounts of the campaign is an understanding of how Obama for America recruited, motivated, developed, and managed its formidable army of 2.2 million volunteers. Unlike previous field campaigns that drew their power from staff, consultants, and paid canvassers, the Obama campaign's capacity came from unpaid local citizens who took responsibility for organizing their own neighborhoods months--and even years--in advance of election day. In so doing, Groundbreakers argues, the campaign engaged citizens in the work of practicing democracy. How did they organize so many volunteers to produce so much valuable work for the campaign? This book describes how. Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han argue that the legacy of Obama for America extends beyond big data and micro-targeting; it also reinvigorated and expanded traditional models of field campaigning. Groundbreakers makes the case that the Obama campaign altered traditional ground games by adopting the principles and practices of community organizing. Drawing on in-depth interviews with OFA field staff and volunteers, this book also argues that a key achievement of the OFA's field organizing was its transformative effect on those who were a part of it. Obama the candidate might have inspired volunteers to join the campaign, but it was the fulfilling relationships that volunteers had with other people--and their deep belief that their work mattered for the work of democracy--that kept them active. Groundbreakers documents how the Obama campaign has inspired a new way of running field campaigns, with lessons for national and international political and civic movements.
