Has the international movement for democracy and human rights
gone from being a weapon against power to part of the arsenal of
power itself? Nicolas Guilhot explores this question in his
penetrating look at how the U.S. government, the World Bank,
political scientists, NGOs, think tanks, and various international
organizations have appropriated the movement for democracy and
human rights to export neoliberal policies throughout the world.
His work charts the various symbolic, ideological, and political
meanings that have developed around human rights and democracy
movements. Guilhot suggests that these shifting meanings reflect
the transformation of a progressive, emancipatory movement into an
industry, dominated by "experts," ensconced in positions of
power.
Guilhot's story begins in the 1950s when U.S. foreign policy
experts promoted human rights and democracy as part of a
"democratic international" to fight the spread of communism. Later,
the unlikely convergence of anti-Stalinist leftists and the nascent
neoconservative movement found a place in the Reagan
administration. These "State Department Socialists," as they were
known, created policies and organizations that provided financial
and technical expertise to democratic movements, but also supported
authoritarian, anti-communist regimes, particularly in Latin
America.
Guilhot also traces the intellectual and social trajectories of
key academics, policymakers, and institutions, including Seymour M.
Lipset, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the "Chicago Boys," including Milton
Friedman, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Ford
Foundation. He examines the ways in which various individuals, or
"double agents," were able to occupy pivotal positions at the
junction of academe, national, and international institutions, and
activist movements. He also pays particular attention to the role
of the social sciences in transforming the old anti-Communist
crusades into respectable international organizations that promoted
progressive and democratic ideals, but did not threaten the
strategic and economic goals of Western governments and
businesses.
Guilhot's purpose is not to disqualify democracy promotion as a
conspiratorial activity. Rather he offers new perspectives on the
roles of various transnational human rights institutions and the
policies they promote. Ultimately, his work proposes a new model
for understanding the international politics of legitimate
democratic order and the relation between popular resistance to
globalization and the "Washington Consensus."
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