Daniel Larison runs down the dangers of democracy promotion:
Another danger is that this emphasis on democracy promotion conflates U.S. interests in a region with the aspirations of other peoples to govern themselves democratically when these two may not be complementary. Most enthusiasts for democracy promotion seem rarely to contemplate the possibility of such a conflict between the political goals of democrats in other countries and U.S. policies, and there usually seems to be a casual assumption that American interests and â??valuesâ? advance in tandem. Much of the sympathy for the Green movement in the U.S. is predicated on two basically false beliefs that most Green movement members want to topple their government and want to adopt policies more amenable to the U.S. Many Western sympathizers with the Green movement would suddenly start singing a very different tune if they understood that neither of these things is true.
A related problem with the discussion of democracy promotion is that it's gotten increasingly wrapped up in partisan politics. We now hear commentators routinely damn the administration for failing to vigorously spread freedom - or at least, pay obsequious lip service to the idea that that's what the president should be doing. But as a partisan criteria, it's absurd. Even if you had an administration that was seriously committed to spreading democracy, it's not something that happens overnight. I think all but the most blinkered Wilsonian will acknowledge that building a true, durable democracy takes years, if not decades, of patient institution building. Moreover it's a cooperative effort: if the "host" nation isn't interested, it doesn't matter what the U.S. federal government does.
While I don't think the U.S. should play a role in armed democracy promotion (a view that very few people actually hold), or cynically retreat to the rhetoric of democracy promotion as a cover for advancing other interests (a view with a much larger constituency), I do think the U.S. can and should lay the groundwork for a more peaceful, liberalizing international order. But as Leslie Gelb argued in Power Rules, that will be accomplished via economic integration - something where the administration's critics do have legitimate grounds to criticize.
