The promotion of democracy by the United States became highly controversial during the presidency of George W. Bush. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were widely perceived as failed attempts at enforced democratization, sufficient that Barack Obama has felt compelled to downplay the rhetoric of democracy and freedom in his foreign-policy.

This collection seeks to establish whether a democracy promotion tradition exists, or ever existed, in US foreign policy, and how far Obama and his predecessors conformed to or repudiated it. For more than a century at least, American presidents have been driven by deep historical and ideological forces to conceive US foreign policy in part through the lens of democracy promotion. Debating how far democratic aspirations have been realized in actual foreign policies, this book draws together concise studies from many of the leading academic experts in the field to evaluate whether or not these efforts were successful in promoting democratization abroad. They clash over whether democracy promotion is an appropriate goal of US foreign policy and whether America has gained anything from it.

Offering an important contribution to the field, this work is essential reading for all students and scholars of US foreign policy, American politics and international relations.

The promotion of democracy by the United States became highly controversial during the presidency of George W. Bush. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were widely perceived as failed attempts at enforced democratization, sufficient that Barack Obama has felt compelled to downplay the rhetoric of democracy and freedom in his foreign-policy.

This collection seeks to establish whether a democracy promotion tradition exists, or ever existed, in US foreign policy, and how far Obama and his predecessors conformed to or repudiated it. For more than a century at least, American presidents have been driven by deep historical and ideological forces to conceive US foreign policy in part through the lens of democracy promotion. Debating how far democratic aspirations have been realized in actual foreign policies, this book draws together concise studies from many of the leading academic experts in the field to evaluate whether or not these efforts were successful in promoting democratization abroad. They clash over whether democracy promotion is an appropriate goal of US foreign policy and whether America has gained anything from it.

Offering an important contribution to the field, this work is essential reading for all students and scholars of US foreign policy, American politics and international relations.

First published in 2004, this provocative and remarkable book is the first significant study of how the Clinton administration revolutionized US policy toward Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Based on interviews with the major actors in the episode, Timothy Lynch examines in detail how the internal American turf war fought over Northern Ireland shaped the quality and character of US engagement. Turf War will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand American policy toward Northern Ireland; the institutional dynamics of US foreign policy after the cold war; the perils of locking terrorists into a democratic process; and US interventions more broadly.

First published in 2004, this provocative and remarkable book is the first significant study of how the Clinton administration revolutionized US policy toward Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Based on interviews with the major actors in the episode, Timothy Lynch examines in detail how the internal American turf war fought over Northern Ireland shaped the quality and character of US engagement. Turf War will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand American policy toward Northern Ireland; the institutional dynamics of US foreign policy after the cold war; the perils of locking terrorists into a democratic process; and US interventions more broadly.

This book offers a bold re-interpretation of the prevailing narrative that US foreign policy after the Cold War was a failure. In chapters that retell and re-argue the key episodes of the post-Cold War years, Lynch argues that the Cold War cast a shadow on the presidents that came after it and that success came more from adapting to that shadow than in attempts to escape it. When strategic lessons of the Cold War were applied, presidents fared better; when they were forgotten, they fared worse. This book tells the story not of a revolution in American foreign policy but of its essentially continuous character from one era to the next. While there were many setbacks between the fall of Soviet communism and the opening years of the Trump administration, from Rwanda to 9/11 and Iraq to Syria, Lynch demonstrates that the US remained the world's dominant power.