The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
The Clinton Administration as New Wilsonians?
Michael Cox
The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of democracy
promotion as it as been both theorized and practiced under the Clinton
administration. It odes not pretend to be exhaustive but rather tries to explore in
an abbreviated, but hopefully suggestive way, the following questions:
The first, quite simply, is why in the last analysis has the Clinton
administration stressed the centrality of democracy promotion in its foreign
policy? Let me be clear here. I have no doubt there is far more continuity in this
policy area than either Clinton or Bush would care to admit1. It is also perfectly
clear that Clinton rather effectively used the issue of 'democracy' to put clear
blue water between himself and Bush during the presidential campaign.2 I
would even agree with David Hendrickson that having raised the ideological
stakes during 1992, Clinton then had to spend a good deal of his time sorting
out the mess his earlier promises had created. To this extent, Clinton was,
without doubt, hoisted on his own electoral petard: and this is one of the
reasons (amongst others) why 'American foreign policy' appeared to be in such
1
This point is very well made by Thomas Carothers, 'Democracy Promotion under Clinton',
Washington Quarterly, 18:4, 1995, pp. 13-25
2 In his first major foreign policy speech at Georgetown on 12 December 1991, Clinton argued
that Bush had not only 'coddled China' but more generally seemed to 'favor stability and his
personal relations with foreign leaders over a coherent policy of promoting freedom and
economic growth'. In his next address to the Foreign Policy Association on 1 April 1992 he
continued his attack- adding that aside from appeasing China, Bush had also 'poured cold water
on Baltic and Ukrainian aspirations for independence' and had failed to recognize 'Croatia and
Slovenia'. In the summer issue of the Harvard International Review, Clinton was in even more
expansive form. 'President Bush' he opined 'too often has hesitated when democratic forces
needed our support in challenging the status quo. I believe that President Bush erred when he
secretly rushed enjoys to resume cordial relations with China barely a month after the massacre
in Tiananmen Square; when he spurned Yeltsin before the Moscow coup; when he poured cold
water on Baltic, Ukrainian, Croatian and Slovenian aspirations for independence; and when he
initially refused to help the Kurds'. On 13 August in a speech given to the World Affairs Council
in Los Angeles, he again assailed Bush; not just for being indifferent to democracy and the
'democratic revolution' but in daring to criticize Israel- America's 'only democratic ally in the
Middle East'. Finally, in an address delivered at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee on 1
October 1992, Clinton more or less accused Bush of being 'un-American' and of not appearing
to be 'at home in the mainstream pro-democracy tradition of American foreign policy'. Cited in
Clinton on Foreign Policy Issues (London: United States Information Service, n.d.)
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
'disarray and confusion' after he assumed office in 1992.3 But none of this really
helps us explain why as early as December 1991 Clinton made such a huge
play for the democratic 'card' in constructing his foreign policy. Nor would it
explain why, in spite of the various attacks made upon the policy by realist
critics in particular,4 the administration continued to emphasize its attachment to
democracy promotion: not just because it happened to correspond to American
core values, but also because it was deemed to be in the US national interest.
This point was affirmed in a major statement outlining national security
objectives in February 1996.5 It was then reaffirmed later that year in an
important article authored by the Deputy Secretary of State and published in
Foreign Affairs.6
The question of cause and motive brings us secondly to what many would
see as the central problem: namely the specific relationship between
democracy promotion on the one hand and America's economic objectives on
the other. There is a good deal of dispute about this. On the one side there are
those who argue that democracy cannot be reduced to economics, and tat to
view democracy promotion as merely a guise for masking economic interest is a
form of crude reductionism. Others take a rather different line and suggest that
democracy is either less important than economics- and will always be
subordinated to economics when there is a choice- or simply a device used to
obscure or advance US economic interests around the world. The two positions
it would seem are not compatible. What is quite striking about he Clinton
administration, however, is the extent to which it seems to see no real
difference in principle between politics and economics. Indeed, it appears to
3
See David C. Hendrickson, 'The Recovery of Internationalism', Foreign Affairs, SeptemberOctober, 1994, Vol. 74, No.5, pp. 26-43
4 For a very small sample of the attacks made upon Clinton's Wilsonite or neo-Wilsonian views,
see inter alia, Fareed Zakaria, 'Is Realism Finished', National Interest, Winter 1992-1993, pp.
21-32, Robert W. Tucker, 'Realism and the New Consensus', National Interest, Winter 19921993, pp. 33-36, Christopher Layne, 'Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace',
International Security, 19, 2, Fall 1994, esp. pp. 47-49, John Mearsheimer, 'The False Promise
of International Institutions', International Security, 19, 3, Winter 1994-1995, esp. p. 5, Godfrey
Hodgson, 'American Ideals: Global Realities', World Policy Journal, Vol. X, No. 4, Winter 19931994, pp. 1-6, Richard Haass, 'Paradigm Lost', Foreign Affairs, January-February 1995, Vol. 74.
No. 1, pp. 43-58, and Richard Haass, The Reluctant Sherriff: The United States after the Cold
War (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997), pp. 60-63.
5 See A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (The White House,
February 1996), pp. i, ii, 2, 32-33.
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
view the academic debate about the precise relationship between politics and
economics as either having been settled in practice, or basically being irrelevant
to their foreign policy concerns. Certainly, in their own minds, they appear to
see economics and politics as being intimately connected- to such a degree that
they invariably talk in foreign policy terms as if the two were inseparable twins.
This of course is reflected in their constant and apparently unquestioning use of
the term 'market democracies' when seeking to outline the doctrine or strategy
of 'enlargement'.7 The question this leads to, is how does the Clinton
administration view the relationship between the two spheres; and why does it
think and act as if democracy and markets were mutually compatible? In short,
what is the political economy of the Clinton administration?
This leads me to ask a third question: about the limits and contradictions of
the policy of democracy promotion. On this subject there is a vast literature
penned by a large number of authors ranging from Henry Kissinger 8 and
George Kennan9 - who both seem to regard democracy promotion as the
Achilles Heel in the American diplomatic tradition- through to influential radials
like Noam Chomsky who argue that it has little or nothing to do with American
foreign policy: if anything the US purpose before, during and after the Cold War
according to Chomsky has been injurious rather than supportive of genuine
democracy around the world.10 This not only flies in the face of those who claim
6
See Strobe Talbot, 'Democracy and the National Interest', Foreign Affairs, NovemberDecember 1996, Vol. 74, No. 6, pp. 47-63
7 For good examples of the use of the term 'market democracy' see the four speeches made in
September 1993 outlining the strategy of 'enlargement'. These were made in turn by Warren
Christopher at Columbia University on September 20, Anthony Lake at SAIS on September 21,
Madelaine Albright at the National War College on the 23rd, and finally President Clinton himself
at the UN on 27 September 1997. For a fine assessment of the policy of enlargement see
Douglas Brinkley, 'Democratic Enlargement: the Clinton Doctrine', Foreign Policy, Spring 1997,
Number 106. pp. 111-127.
8 See, more recently, Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).
Naturally enough, Kissinger traces the policy of democracy promotion back to Woodrow Wilson.
He writes that 'for Wilson, the justification of America's international role was messianic;
America had an obligation not to the balance of power but to spread its principles throughout
the world'.
9 For Kennan's classic and influential critique of what he termed the 'legalistic-moralistic
approach to international affairs' see his American Diplomacy: 1900-1950 (University of
Chicago, 1951). Kennan of course saw a direct connection between what he dismissed as the
missionary nature of American foreign policy and the durability of the Cold War as a system. In
this way his 'realism' was deployed not to support the Cold War but to attack it- a point often
forgotten by commentators hostile to realism as an international relations discourse. See
Michael Cox, 'Requiem for a Cold War Critic', Irish Slavonic Studies, No. 11, 1991, pp. 1-36.
10 See Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (London: Vintage, 1992), pp. 331-350.
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
that the American agenda has always aimed to create (though has not always
succeeded in establishing) a 'world order of democratic states'11 It also takes us
to the heart of the debate about what forms of democracy the US prefers and
why; why it promotes democracy in certain countries and regions but not
necessarily in others; and most important of all perhaps- whether or not there is
(as claimed an easy and uncomplicated relationship between neo-liberal
economic forms and democracy as a foreign policy objective?
A fourth area I am interested in- and will briefly explore here- is the issue of
how 'we' or more precisely the practitioners of foreign policy, 'construct' or 'read'
the past. This is a crucially important topic, for as Ernest May has pointed out in
is classic study of the Cold War, it was precisely the manner in which US
foreign policy-makers understood the past- and in particular the history of the
1930s and the nature of Hitler's Germany- that helped shape the international
history of the 1950s and US views of the Soviet Union. 12 In the same way, I
would want to suggest that a large part of the current debate about democracy
promotion, and whether or not it is either a good or a practicable thing, is very
much determined not just by the 'facts', but a particular and in many ways nonetoo-accurate reading of America's diplomatic past: and especially the historic
part played by Woodrow Wilson, possibly the most misunderstood and difficult
to understand foreign policy presidents of the 20th century. Seen by the foreign
policy community today as the quintessential symbol of American utopianism,
his actual role in time appears to have been far more complex. Indeed, whereas
contemporary practitioners and analysts have a very clear picture of what
Wilson was (and thus what 'Wilsonianism' represents)13 historians of the Wilson
presidency remain deeply divided about his underlying purpose. Thus whereas
most modern commentators would see Wilson as an idealist, his most serious
biographer views him as being driven by a 'higher realism'.14 N. Gordon Lewis
paints a picture of Wilson as motivated primarily by anti-Bolshevism and a
desire to make the world safe for liberal capitalism- a view also supported by
11
See Tony Smith, America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for
Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 9.
12 See Ernest May, "Lessons of the Past"; the Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign
Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973)
13 For a classic example of the 'modern' Wilson se Robert W. Tucker, 'The Triumph of
Wilsonianism', World Policy Journal, Vol. X, No.4 pp. 83-99
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
both William A. Williams and Lloyd Gardner.15 Link, on the other hand, regards
him as being motivated mainly by Christianity. 16 Wilson is often associated with
peace and the peaceful resolution of international disputes. However, according
to one historian 'no other American president before or since used force more
often than he'.17 One could go on. But the point here is that whereas there is no
consensus about the historical Wilson, there does seem to be one about the
Wilson in the foreign policy foreign policy debates of the 1990s; and this
consensus seems to be that he was a democrat with clear and unambiguous
democratic credentials. The question is however: is this true in reality, and if it is
not true, why do contemporary pundits assume it to be true?18
Finally, I wish to take up the issues raised in the critically important volumes
by Michael Hunt on the relationship between ideology and US foreign policy. In
a major reinterpretation of American diplomatic history, Hunt argues that there
is indeed an ideology that has shaped American foreign policy. However, this
has little to do with democracy as such. In fact, Hunt implies that the ideology of
democracy has had relatively little impact upon the outlook of core policymakers since the late nineteenth century. Rather they have been inspired more
by three core ideas: a belief in America's greatness and America's ultimate
destiny to shape the fate of the world; an assumption (unquestioned until the
late 1960s) that there was a hierarchy or race which was 'naturally' bound to
reproduce itself in the international sphere; and finally a deep and abiding fear
of revolution and political upheaval. The question I want to ask here is whether
or not by prioritizing and privileging democracy and democracy promotion as
America's prime ideological mission, we can too easily forget that there are
other ideas and assumptions which America has exported through the twentieth
century? Moreover, though its ideology may not be the same today as it was
twenty five or even one hundred years ago, Hunt's thesis makes us sensitive to
14
See Arthur S. Link, The Higher Realism of Woodrow Wilson (Nashville: Tenn., 1971)
See N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics (New York, 1968) and Lloyd
Gardner, Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913-1923 (New
York, Oxford University Press, 1984)
16 Arthur Link, Wilson: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 (Princeton University Press, 1960-1965)
17 Fredrick Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian Foreign Policy (Kent,
1986)
18 A question raised in the important intervention in the democratic peace debate by Ido Oren,
'The subjectivity of the "Democratic Peace": Changing U.S. Perceptions of Imperial Germany',
International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2, Fall 1995, pp. 147-184.
15
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
the fact that what America exports is not just the idea of democracy (however
one defines it) but rather itself in the form of different social practices. And these
can be every bit as tangible, and as significant, as more formal efforts to
support elections and the rule of law in countries and cultures which frequently
deny they need either.
Why export democracy?
In his lengthy and by now classic (not to mention controversial) work on the
promotion of democracy as an American foreign policy objective in the twentieth
century, Tony Smith draws our attention to the paucity or serious work on the
subject by either diplomatic historians or scholars of international relations.
Smith identifies at least two primary reasons for this lacuna: the influence of
realism and the impact of radicalism upon American intellectual life. Realists, in
his view, have not been interested in the subject because they assume that the
nature of political forms makes no difference to the behavior of states in an
anarchic international system. Radicals have been indifferent, basically,
because they believe the US is not really concerned about democracy; and
even when it does express an interest, only does so because it happens to
coincide wit its larger strategic or economic interest. Thus if the US promoted
'democracy' before 1989 this was only to further the Cold War against the
Soviet Union- a charge frequently laid at the feet of the greatest Wilsonian of
them all, Ronald Reagan. And if it has promoted 'democracy' since, it has
merely been to consolidate its ideological dominance in a one world system
where there is no alternative and no external barrier to American power.
This broader skepticism about the subject is at least one of the reasons why
there has been relatively little work done on the promotional record of the
Clinton administration.19 However, this silence has been made worse by three
other factors: a widely held assumption that Clinton may not have had a foreign
19
Though see Thomas Carothers, 'Democracy without Illusions', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 1,
January-February 1997, pp. 85-99
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
policy at all when he took office;20 the suspicion that if and when he did act
abroad, it was primarily to shore up or repay some domestic constituency; 21 and
a feeling that when he thought about the world at all, it was not of a world full of
democracies, but rather of big emerging markets purchasing American goods
and choosing American investors instead of European or Japanese ones.
Paraphrasing his hero Kennedy, some would argue that Clinton's big foreign
policy idea could be summed up in the following way: 'Ask not what your
country can do for you, but what exporting can do for your country- and you'!22
That said, one still has to account for the persistence of the theme of
democracy promotion in Clinton's pronouncements on foreign policy since late
1991 when he made his first serious speech on foreign policy at Georgetown;
significantly nearly two years before the strategy of 'enlargement' was formally
announced by Anthony Lake in September 1993.
Here I would want to identify at least four factors which have led Clinton
down the democratic path in foreign policy:
American Exceptionalism
'The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of
democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution and that they are
born equal, instead of becoming so'.23
How Clinton views American history can only be gleaned from his various
speeches and often well-publicized private pronouncements. But like Reagan,
and no doubt other American presidents before him, Clinton himself does seem
to have a certain view of America's past. This might easily be dismissed as
rhetoric, but even rhetoric matters: and at the heart of this rhetoric is a belief
shared by millions of Americans (now as in the past) that 'the United States is
20
See the comments by former US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ray Seitz in 'From the
Jaws of Victory', The Economist, 27 May, 1995, pp. 23-25
21 Most obviously over Northern Ireland. On US policy towards Northern Ireland see Michael
Cox, 'Bringing in the "international": the IRA Ceasefire and the end of the Cold War',
International Affairs, Vol. 73, No.4, October 1997, pp. 671-695.
22 Quoted in Business America, 4 October 1993
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
the land of the free'.24 American democracy in this respect 'is not just a
condition of democracy' but is 'a qualitatively exceptional form of democracy
whose idiosyncratic nature is derived from the peculiarities of America itself'.
Whether it can exported given that it grew up under certain influences is far
from certain.25 On the other hand, precisely because of the perceived success
of democracy in America, it follows that what has been good for America (like
General Motors) is also likely to be good for the world as a whole.
Democracy as the wave of the future
"As the peoples of the twentieth century approach the 21 st century, we are
arriving at an unprecedented consensus about how we should organize
ourselves within and between states. There's an increasingly universal senseshared and championed by people on every continent- that democracy is the
best form of political organization"26
If there are deep cultural tap-roots to the democratic imperative, there are
also equally important conjunctural factors that have impelled the Clinton
administration to adopt democracy promotion as an international goal.
Undoubtedly, one factor is the seemingly irrefutable assumption that democracy
represents the wave of the future. The administration bases this on its more or
less correct reading of what has happened since the early 1970s. Clinton
officials are very well aware that the past two decades has witnessed a truly
'remarkable progress for democracy' as a political form.27 Indeed, between 1972
and 1992, the number of systems defined as being democratic by US agencies
more than doubled from 44 to 107; and of the 187 countries in the world today,
over half- 58%- have adopted democratic government.28 Moreover, with the
23
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (London: Oxford University Press, 1946) p. 370.
Daniel J. Boortsin, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1958) p. 25.
25 See Michael Foley, 'The Democratic Imperative', in Tony McGrew, The United States in the
Twentieth Century: Empire (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994), p. 171.
26 See Strobe Talbott, The New Geopolitics: Defending Democracy in the Post-Cold War Era. Speech delivered at Oxford University, UK, 20 October 1994.
27 See Doh Chull Shin, 'On the Third Wave of Democratization', World Politics, Vol. 47, No. 1,
October 1994, pp. 135-170.
28 See Bruce R. McColm, 'The Comparative Survey of Freedom, 1993', Freedom Review, 3,
January-February 1993 and Adrian Karatnycky, 'Freedom in Retreat', Freedom Review, 25
February 1994.
24
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
collapse of communism, democracy has for the first time in history become, in
Huntington's phrase, 'the only legitimate and viable alternative to authoritarian
regime of any kind.'29 Furthermore, though by no means wholehearted in their
support for Francis Fukuyama's claim that history had come to an end (one
academic phrase it has carefully avoided using in its public statements) the
Clinton team did seem to accept his core argument that we were living through
a 'worldwide liberal revolution' which left the ideal of democracy- if not always its
practice- as the sole surviving form of government ultimately had to take if it
was to be regarded as legitimate at the end of the twentieth century. 30
Democratic peace thesis
"It should matter to us how others govern themselves. Democracies don't
go to war with each other. The French and the British have nuclear weapons,
but we don't fear annihilation at their hands. Democracies don't sponsor terrorist
acts against each other. They are more reliable trading partners, protect the
global environment, abide by international law.'31
Underlying
the
Clinton
administration's
commitment
to
democracy
promotion was (and remains) what looks on the surface at least to be an almost
uncritical adoption of one particularly influential academic argument made
famous by Michael Doyle and Bruce Russett: the democratic peace thesis. 32
There is little point here surveying the discussion. That has been done
elsewhere in great, almost painful detail.33 What is significant for our discussion,
though, is not whether the thesis is a valid one, but how early Clinton adopted
the idea, and how frequently he and others in the administration then repeated
29
Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave in Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century
(Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1992), p. 58.
30 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, The Free Press,
1992), pp. 39-51
31 Bill Clinton, A New Covenant for American Society. Speech at Georgetown, 12 December
1991.
32 See Michael W. Doyle, 'Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs', Pts. I and II in
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1982 (12) pp. 205-235, 323-353, and Bruce M. Russett, Grasping
the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (MA: Harvard University Press,
1993).
33 The most exhaustive survey on the democratic peace literature has been conducted by
Steven Chan, 'In Search of Democratic Peace: Problems and Promise', Mershon International
Studies Review, 1997, 41, pp. 59-91.
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
it- even to the extent of footnoting their statements with references to the
academic literature.34 Certainly, if there was one big idea the administration was
to be guided by after assuming office, it was the notion that democracies never
go to war with each other.35
World Order Issues
Finally, the Clinton administration appeared to believe that democracy and
the spread of democracy would also help contain or at least help ameliorate a
number of other threats to world order; apart from the threat of direct military
conflict between states. First, democracy was assumed to be central to the
successful transition in the former Soviet empire.36 Second, it was also
assumed
that
democracies
dealt
more
effectively
with
famine
than
dictatorships.37 Third, and more generally, the spread of democracy was in the
national interest- it was argued- because of the very dynamics of globalization.
Indeed, according to Strobe Talbott, an 'an increasingly interdependent world'
Americans and what he termed a 'growing stake in how other countries govern
or misgovern themselves'. In his view, 'a combination of technological,
commercial and political trends is shortening distances, opening borders, and
connecting far-flung cultures and economies. With this phenomenon have come
new benefits and new dangers. As good sand services move more quickly and
freely among countries and continents, so do viruses, narcotics, criminals and
terrorists as well as the causes and consequences economic degradation'. He
continued and concluded: 'The larger and more close-knit the community of
nations that choose democratic forms of government' the less risk there was,
34
See Building a Pacific Community. Statement before the Commonwealth Club, San
Francisco, 12 January 1995. Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs. In a lengthy discourse outlining US policy towards the region, Winston Lord
quoted one "democratic peace" theorist to the effect that of the '353 wars fought since 1819, not
a single one has been between established democracies'. The theorist in question was Rudolph
J. Rummell, Death by Government (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1994)
35 For a more sceptical view of the relationship between academic theory and foreign policy
practice see Thomas Carrothers, 'Democracy', Foreign Policy, No. 107, Summer 1997, pp. 1118. According to Carrothers, the thesis about democracies not going to war with each other
'may be appealing, but its validity as a political science rule exceeds its utility as a tool for policy
makers' (p. 12).
36 See Michael Cox, 'The Clinton presidency and post-Communist Russia', International Affairs,
Vol. 70, No. 4, October 1994.
37 See Strobe Talbott, 'Democracy and the National Interest', Foreign Affairs, NovemberDecember 1996, pp. 51-52.
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
and the more likely governments were to 'maintain their international
commitments' not to 'engage in terrorism'.38
Towards a Political Economy of Democracy Promotion
As I have argued elsewhere, one of the more enduring myths about Clinton
is that he came to power without a perspective on the world. Of course unlike
his neo-conservative predecessor in the shape of Ronald Reagan, Clinton could
hardly construct a foreign policy consensus around some clear external enemy.
Nor could he build it around the idea of the 'Japan threat' - an idea which never
made much sense - or the notion of an Islamic menace to western civilization.
Instead, a new foreign policy had to be established on more solid material
foundations, and Clinton constructed his around three central notions. The first
was that in an era of geo-economics, no serous distinction could be drawn
between domestic politics and foreign policy. They were simply two sides of the
same coin. The second was that given America's more complete integration into
the global economy, the United States could not disengage or withdraw from
the world. Isolation from this perspective was simply a nonsense. And the third
notion was that because the Untied States could not disengage economically,
its only option was to accept the challenge of globalization and compete
successfully. To use one of Clinton's pet phrases, the US had to 'compete not
retreat'.39
In the pursuit of this longer term objective (theorized by influential
economists such as Lester Thurrow and Jeffrey Garten and put into practice by
tough trade negotiators like Micky Kantor, Ron Brown and Laura Tyson) Clinton
thus set out to reform if not revolutionize US relations with the outside world.
This in turn involved a remodeling of the foreign policy apparatus in an
38
Talbott was especially taken with the democratic peace thesis. In fact, he believed that 'this
principle' had been 'prominent in the thinking of American statesmen in the twentieth century'.
He cited, amongst others, the work of David A. Lake, 'Powerful Pacifists: the Democratic States
and War', American Political Science Review, March 1992, pp. 24-37 and G. John Ikenberry,
'The Myth of Post-Cold War Chaos', Foreign Affairs, May-June 1996, pp. 24-37. See Talbott,
'Democracy and the National Interest', p. 49, fn. 2.
39 See Michael Cox, US Foreign Policy after the Cold War: Superpower without a Mission?
(London: Pinter for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995).
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
'economic' direction in order to make it more functionally effective in an age of
ruthless competition. Clinton also implemented a number of crucial measures
designed to improve the operation of the state economic apparatus, one of the
more striking results of which was a massive injection of new talent and effort
into the once moribund Commerce Department. Finally, the administration set
about aggressively challenging its competitors in what it defined as the big
emerging markets, while at the same time pushing forward with a series of
measures whose purpose was to increase the global flow of good and services
by making the world economy even more open than it already was. Clinton's
preoccupation (some would say obsession) with the economy and the issue of
competitiveness has logically and reasonably led a number of commentators to
conclude that his administration's interest in democracy promotion- which was
neither high on the American people's agenda nor likely to lead those 'high paid,
high skill' jobs of which Clinton frequently spoke- was really quite secondary.
There is a good deal of truth in this argument. As Brinkley has shown, the policy
of democracy promotion or enlargement was certainly regarded by many within
the administration as basically being another name for trade promotion. As one
figure rather neatly put it, "We want to enlarge the scope of democracy; it's all
about widening market access". That said, we still need to explore how the
administration conceived of the relationship between politics and economics;
and why in fact it saw a very real and practical connection between promoting
democracy on the one hand and advancing its more general economic agenda
on the other. Why, in other words, it thought democracy was good for capitalism
and capitalism essential for democracy.
Rather than developing the argument here in detail, I shall merely allow the
'evidence' to speak for itself in the form of a number of fairly typical statements
made by members of the administration. I am not interested at this stage in
demonstrating whatever what they said was true or untrue, only to point to the
fact that they clearly perceived of a connection between political forms, legal
structures and economic outcomes. They did so for a number of specific
reasons.
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
First, because democracy and markets had changed the course of history
by undermining planning in the former communist countries. As Talbott argued:
"it is not just the market but democracy and markets together that brought us
victory in the Cold War." (Strobe Talbott, 20 October 1994)
The two together were also seen as the basis of human freedom. This was
put rather well by Anthony Lake in 1993. He noted that "billions of people on
every continent are simply concluding, based on decades of the their own
experience, that democracy and markets are the most productive and liberating
ways to organize their lives. Their conclusion resonates with America's core
values We see individuals as equally created with a God-given right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So we trust in the equal wisdom of free
individuals to protect those rights: through democracy, as the process for best
meeting shared needs in the face of competing desires; and through markets as
the process for best meeting private needs in a way that expands opportunity.
Both processes strengthen each other: democracy alone can produce justice,
but not the material goods necessary for individuals to thrive; markets alone can
expand wealth, but not that sense of justice without which civilized societies
perish." (Anthony Lake, 21 September 1993)
Democracy was also regarded as being economically functional: partly
because it could help countries "modernize their economies, ameliorate social
conditions and integrate with the outside world"; and partly because it would
"legitimize
painful
but
necessary economic
choices".
(Strobe
Talbott,
November-December, 1996). This last point was also made by Secretary of
State Warren Christopher. He argued that "in nations undergoing economic
transformation, market reformers who enjoy popular legitimacy are more likely
to win popular support for tough economic measures". (Warren Christopher, 31
January 1995). Moreover, "democracies are more likely to be reliable trading
partners". (Bill Clinton, 12 December 1991 and 13 August 1992).
Finally, there was perceived to be a relationship between capitalism,
democracy and the rule of law: "Free and open markets can be meaningfully
sustained over the long haul only by societies that respect human rights and the
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
rule of law" (Warren Christopher, 31 January 1995). "In a world where
information flows freely, the rule of law protects not only political rights but the
essential elements of free market economies". (Warren Christopher, 14
February, 1995). "The rule of law protects not just political rights" but "the
essential elements of free market economies" (Warren Christopher, 1 March
1995).
The contradictions of democracy promotion
In the first two sections we have in effect looked at the case for democracy
promotion. Now we shall examine a number of problems with the strategy and
look at some of the criticisms directed against it. Again, I shall make the
arguments in a fairly schematic and abbreviated way.
Consistency
The first issue really concerns the extent to which the administration was
ever completely committed to the strategy. According to at least one version of
events, the new team in 1992 was devoutly Wilsonian in character but soon
learned the error of its idealistic ways. Such an account is put forward in
typically robust fashion by Robert W. Tucker. Tucker maintains that 'the Clinton
administration came to power wit an outlook closer to Wilson's than any
administration since the Second World War'. But this triumph of Wilsonianism
'proved very brief' and within a few brief months 'most of the initial promise' was
withdrawn. This view, I would insist, ignores one simple point: the Clinton
administration was always careful not to suggest that it was involved in a moral
mission to make the world safe for democracy. Indeed, on at least two
occasions, Lake himself was quite critical of Wilson for believing America
should be. On another occasion, Clinton, after having made the case for
democracy, made it clear that his administration simply was not interested in
'reckless crusades': and he added- significantly- that 'we know that there may
be times when other security needs or economic interests will diverge from our
commitment to democracy and human rights'. The same point incidentally was
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
made by Anthony Lake in September 1993 and then later by Strobe Talbott.
Lake noted that US interests in 'democracy' did 'not stand alone' and that 'at
times' the US would have 'to befriend and even defend non-democratic states':
and Talbott, having argued that democracy promotion was in the national
interest, then went on to argue that it was 'not an absolute imperative'.
Selectivity
If the Clinton administration can be criticized for never being fully committed
to its own stated goal of promoting democracy, it can also be attacked on the
grounds that it was highly selective in its application of the policy. The case of
the Middle East stands out. On the one hand, Clinton was for ever making the
point that Israel was America's ally because it was the only democracy in the
Middle East. On the other hand, his administration did little or nothing to
promote the cause of democracy in the region by penalizing those countries
close to the United States but which were clearly not democratic in their
practices. In the same way, though it raised the issue of human rights in its
early dealings with China, it never seriously talked of promoting democracy in
China. And after 1993 of course it even retreated on the question of human
rights. In its relations with the so-called 'backlash states' (Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Korea) the US rarely if ever raised the question of democracy as it has tried to
deal with each in a classically realist fashion. Moreover, though it has supported
the cause of democracy in Russia, it has turned a blind eye to some of the less
democratic features of the Russian system- including Yeltsin's bombing of the
Russian parliament in 1993 and his subsequent rule of Russia by presidential
decree.
Capitalism and freedom
The final obvious criticism to be made of the policy of democratic promotion
is not just that the form of democracy being promoted is very narrow in
conception- a point made very well by Steve Smith in his paper- but that it
assumes the market is either democratic in its logic or will always foster
democratic practices. Historically, there is little support for this argument.
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
Capitalism after all matured over four centuries when there was no democracy
in the world. Later, when Western elites in the inter-war period were threatened
by a serious alternative in the shape of communism, many of them resorted to
dictatorship. Moreover, during the Cold War as Tony Smith has made plain,
although America might have promoted democratic capitalism in Germany and
Japan, it did not do so in the Third World. Quite the opposite in fact. Moreover,
looking at the situation today, it is far from clear that the markets- especially in
its neo-liberal modern form- is a force for democracy as the administration
claims. As Jacque Attali has pointed out, there are many points of conflict
between the market economy and democracy. He notes at least four:
a. In a democratic society the promotion of the individual is the ultimate goal: in a
market economy the individual is treated as a commodity.
b. The market fosters and accepts strong inequalities, whereas democracy is
based on the equal rights of all citizens.
c. The market economy resists the localization of power, democracies
presuppose it.
d. The market economy assumes that the aggregation of selfish behavior by all
economic agents is best for society, whereas democracy makes the
assumption that the polity can only function where its citizens practice the art of
compromise.
Attali also makes the more general point, that the very foundations of the
modern market economy- the private corporation and the expert civil service
required to manage the state- are far from democratic. As he notes: "For all our
talk of free markets and equality among individuals, our companies and
bureaucracies are organized on the basis of fixed plans and strict hierarchies.
Can we imagine an internal referendum on each decision made by the minister
or cabinet secretary? What does it say about Western values that they cannot
be applied to such institutions, which are at the heart of the Western system?"
The Clinton Adminstration as New Wilsonians?
Will the real Woodrow Wilson please stand up?
In the great contemporary debate about America's democratic mission, the
name of Woodrow Wilson figures highly: and for good reason because he is the
President most often and most readily associated with the ideal of democracy
and democracy promotion. Moreover, though realists and liberals might
disagree about everything else, they both seem to accept at face value the
claim that Wilson was a true enlightenment figure whose ultimate goal was to
remake the world and make it a more democratic place. The only difference is
that whereas realists such as Kennan and Kissinger criticize him for having
such a vision, liberals applaud him.
However, as I suggested in my introduction, this reading of Wilson does not
necessarily correspond to the reality - or more to the point, paints far too simple
a picture of him. Here I will simply point to a few problems with the argument
that Wilson either eschewed power politics or consistently promoted
democracy.
1. First we have to recognize what sort of democrat Wilson was. As the literature
shows, there was something distinctly elitist about Wilson's political vision. At
heart he was Burkean rather than an enlightenment figure with faith in the
people. He had no time for Rousseau or the French Revolution (though later he
did somewhat modify his views about the latter). He certainly seemed to prefer
Hamilton to Jefferson, and felt that democracy did not arise as a result of
convulsions from below- from what he called the 'pauperized and the
oppressed'- but was the result of elite reflection and behavior. Democracy as
he once pointed out was only possible 'amongst people of highest and
steadiest political habits'. He was, in other words, a very particular but not
uncommon type of 19th century democrat who did not necessarily think that
democracy was exactly the same thing as universal suffrage (significantly he
never challenged the Jim Crow system in the American South- where he
himself was born).
Second Editors' Roundtable: "Power and Ethics in International Politics
2. Wilson certainly viewed the world through the prism of race. He frequently
spoke about 'white civilization'. Indeed, in 1917 he told Secretary of State,
Robert Lansing that 'white civilization and its dominion over the world rested
largely in our ability to keep this concept intact'. Significantly, he later opposed
Japan's efforts at the Paris peace talks to have a clause about racial equality
attached to the Covenant of the League of Nations. As Ambrosius has pointed
out, Wilson's determination to prevent this clause from going through, reflected
a number of things, but one of which however was his won racial prejudice.
3. This in turn impacted upon his views of self-determination. Thus though he was
prepared to support it for white Europeans (though not the Irish!) he was far
less enthusiastic about it for peoples in the colonies. He was in fact a great
admirer of the British empire and was in no way inclined to see its
disintegration.
What to promote?
The final point really relates to what America promotes. Here I want to
conclude with a very simple observation: that if the US has problems in
promoting democracy, it has very little difficulty in promoting itself. And perhaps
this is more important over the long term. The relationship which millions of
people around the world have with America is based less upon US efforts to
export a particular political form, than a picture they have of a society where
there is opportunity, ethnic diversity and material abundance. In this respect, it
is perhaps less significant that the US attempts to promote democracy
elsewhere, than people elsewhere continue to admire the United States and still
attempt to come to the United States to work.