Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2009

Democracy Promotion Under Obama: Finding a Way Forward

Thomas Carothers

February 2009

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Abstract

As President Barack Obama and his team define the contours of a new U.S. foreign policy, one of their many challenges is to reformulate U.S. policy on democracy promotion. President George W. Bush elevated the profile of U.S. democracy promotion but then badly tarnished it. By relentlessly associating it with the Iraq war and regime change, he caused many in the world to see it as a hypocritical cover for aggressive interventionism serving U.S. security needs.