Enable and Succeed, Force and Fail: Military Intervention to Enable Democratization

Abstract

Wilsonian ideals regarding the spread of democracy and protection of human rights have underpinned American foreign policy since its inception. As a result, the United States has involved itself in numerous efforts to both protect and spread democracy in foreign lands. In many instances, it has done so through forceful military intervention. The record of these interventions is littered with failures, suggesting limitations in the forced democratization approach, but successes in West Germany, Japan, and South Korea provide compelling counter arguments. Identifying variables that affect the likelihood that forced democratization succeeds is extremely valuable given the wars given stated US foreign policy aims suggesting it will continue to intervene in foreign states whose instability threatens US national interests. The fact that the United States is also likely to install democratic governments only magnifies the importance of studying why force democratization so often fails. The United States' success in South Korea shows that, contrary to the claims of critics, democratic development is possible even when states lack favorable preconditions. The South Korea case indicates that the difference between forced democratization and natural democratization should be a matter of degree not kind. When excessive external influence makes the two processes significantly different, forced democratization is unlikely to produce lasting democracy. Force democratization succeeds when the intervening power starts a country on the path to democracy and uses its influence to support the development of favorable democratic conditions, while still allowing the target state to democratize naturally, usually implying a multi-decade intervention.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 25, 2017
Accession Number
AD1038882

Entities

People

  • Chester D. Boyles

Organizations

  • School of Advanced Military Studies

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Civil War
  • Economic Systems
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • Human Rights
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Organizations
  • International Relations
  • Market Economy
  • National Politics
  • Political Systems
  • Sociopolitics
  • South Korea
  • Students
  • Treaties
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Systems Analysis and Design