The New Democracy Wars: The Politics of North American Democracy Promotion in the Americas

摘要

Since the turn of the century, the struggle for democracy in Latin America has entered a new period. With the shift to the left across the region, the model of liberal, market-oriented democracy is increasingly contested, as are North American policies aimed at consolidating a regional order 'predicated on neoliberal economics and low-intensity democracy' (p. 2). In The New Democracy Wars, Neil A. Burron analyses the ways in which the United States and Canada have dealt with this challenge in their democracy promotion policies. He does so from a critical perspective that is informed by neo-Gramscian international political economy and, in particular, by William I. Robinson's Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, United States Intervention and Hegemony (Cambridge University Press, 1996). In updating Robinson's landmark study on US democracy promotion in Latin America, Burron's analysis reveals how far-reaching shifts in domestic and regional power relations are increasingly limiting the ability of the United States (and Canada) 'to intervene in the affairs of the Americas' (p. 55).