• News & Events
• Calendar of International Events
• News Headlines
• Bartels World Affairs Fellowship

Bartels World Affairs Fellowship

Joschka Fischer, the 2007 Bartels World Affairs Fellow, speaks at Cornell University.

Read more about Joschka Fischer and the Bartels World Affairs Fellowship.

Carothers discusses Obama’s administration at the crossroads of U.S. democracy promotion

Posted on: 3/11/2009

In the wake of the Bush administration’s negative legacy on democracy promotion, the Obama administration is already on the right path said Thomas Carothers at his lecture on March 5th. The former Director of the Einaudi Center and Chair of its Foreign Policy Initiative, Nicolas van de Walle, introduced Dr. Carothers as a speaker in the Center’s Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.

 

Thomas Carothers, a leading democracy expert and author of the most cited article on democracy promotion, gave a lecture entitled, “U.S. Democracy Promotion Under the New Obama Administration.” His lecture focused on the Bush administration’s highly problematic legacy on democracy promotion and general pessimism about the global political climate. “President Bush caused democracy promotion to be loosely associated with Iraq. Democracy became a hypocritical, offensive cover for American intervention, and caused the majority of Americans to believe democracy promotion is a part of aggressive foreign policy,” Carothers said. Accordingly, America’s image as a leader in democracy promotion was critically injured by certain actions in the war on terror, abuses of the legal system, and widely publicized violations of human rights at prison camps. Therefore, the Obama administration is under pressure to pull the U.S. substantially back from democracy promotion because the topic has been made “radioactive” by the Bush administration.

Rebuilding America’s reputation will not be an easy task. Carothers pointed out that some of President Obama’s initial actions offer a valuable start in a necessary process of dissociating the United States from this unfortunate legacy. Just by being elected, Obama sent a ringing signal to the world of the renewal of American democracy and the power of the democratic idea. The administration is attempting to speak with hostile regimes that are willing to engage in constructive dialogue and are also planning to remove the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within the next year. More importantly, cardinal values of Obama’s political philosophy and style – non-confrontational, measured, persistent, bipartisan, cooperative, effective and empowering – provide a natural basis for a new framework to help the U.S. regain its place as a respected, trusted and influential ally of democracy around the world. Regardless of the present economic conditions, Carothers argued that forgetting and not paying attention to [democracy promotion] is wrong because the world expects some position from us and some definition from the U.S. about what we believe in. Like it or not, we cannot avoid democracy promotion.”

Thomas Carothers is vice president for studies and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, based in Washington, D.C.  Carothers has worked on democracy assistance projects for many public and private organizations and carried out extensive field research on democracy-building programs in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.  He is the author or editor of eight books on democracy and rule of law promotion, including most recently Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies (2006) and Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge (2006), as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers.  He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the London School of Economics, and Harvard College.

 

 

Thomas Carothers’ talk was part of the Foreign Policy Initiative at Cornell led by the Einaudi Center to maximize the intellectual impact of Cornell’s outstanding resources in this area.

 

Contact Information
Heike Michelsen
Einaudi Center
255 8926
hm75@cornell.edu

---

Back to News