American Values in Conflict : Democracy vs. Empire

American Values in Conflict : Democracy vs. Empire

  This paper 1) analyzes the historical conflict between American rhetoric about democracy and U.S. imperial behavior toward weaker nations, 2) explores the corrosive effect of the American empire on democratic values at home, and 3) uses the theory of hegemony to understand how the contradictions between democracy and empire have shaped U.S. foreign policy and how they might play out in the future. First, European empires of the Age of Imperialism are compared with U.S. style informal empire. Then the 20<SUP>th</SUP> century intensification of U.S. rhetoric about democratization is juxtaposed with the widening range of U.S. anti democratic interventions during the Cold War. Next, the particular contradictions of U.S. attempts to impose democratization by military intervention are examined. Attention is then focused on the American home front, where the seductions of what William Appleman Williams has called "empire as a way of life" have undermined democratic values at home. Finally, the theory of hegemony is mobilized to explain how the classic imperial impulse interacts with late 20<SUP>th</SUP>/early 21<SUP>st</SUP> century ideas about world order to shape contemporary U.S. foreign policy. In particular, the Bush administration notion of regime change is contrasted with a reconception of the idea of democracy on a global scale.