Democracy promotion is Imperialism 2.0 – it intrinsically reproduces racialized identities and attempts to restructure the world in the image of the imperialist

Maryam Khalid, “Gendered logic(s) of orientalism: representation, discourse, and intervention in the ‘War on Terror’”, UNSW Sydney, Pages 103-106, 2013

As Neil Smith explains, there is a discernible duality underlying the liberal roots of US political make-up. That is, expressions of imperialism in US foreign policy can be understood as based on the notion that it is the US that best embodies ‘liberal democracy’ (‘American Exceptionalism’), yet this system is ‘universalised’13 (and that given the freedom to choose, any rational person would choose the US liberal model).14 There have of course been ‘contradictory attitudes’ to the US’ ‘proper’ role in international affairs, generally in terms of a dichotomy between isolationism and expansion.15 This points to two expressions of a (liberal) commitment to ‘American’ liberal democracy and economic institutions. For example, although US neoconservatives during the 1990s were not ‘liberal internationalists’, their conception of how to achieve their goals (of ‘containing’ Iraq for example) were predicated on the assumption that the US model of liberal democracy was the only legitimate one (thus pushing for the removal of Hussein through the 1990s and the installation of this specific model of democracy in Iraq).16 And, John Dumbrell argues, neoconservatives (some of who were part of the George W. Bush administration) might be ‘conservative’ in terms of domestic issues, but adhere to a liberal understanding of the centrality of free trade and democracy (for example the democratic peace theory) in their formulations of the US’ role and interests in the international arena.17 While there have been substantial differences in foreign policy choices and methods of implementation at moments in US history, it can be argued that at very basic level, the privileging of US liberal democracy is intrinsically tied to the centrality of in US nationalism and domestic as well as international political identity.18

Thus, what I am interested in in this chapter is identifying how, at particular moments, the construction of a US ‘Self’ is not only racialised and gendered but how these racial and gendered logics also enable or prescribe international intervention in certain moments. For example Roxanne Doty has illustrated that particular constructions of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in terms of race and ethnicity have been instrumental in shaping and enabling an imperial US foreign policy.19 As such, this chapter is concerned with the ways in which particular manifestations of liberalism give rise to imperialism; that is, how certain constructions of US ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ have converged to construct (US) intervention as necessary at particular moments since WWI. Although liberalism is marked by a commitment to freedom, peace and democracy, it is not fundamentally opposed to imperialism.20 The connection between imperialism and liberalism is not an inevitable one: liberalism has been anti-imperial in some of its expressions, but also the Westerncentric underpinnings of liberalisms have given rise to imperial impulses in some of their manifestations (for example, in contemporary international relations, in terms of liberal internationalism and the democratic peace theory).21 Whether, in the post-colonial era, imperialism is a valid label for state actions is a highly contested issue in IR. The case for reading US foreign policy and global influence as a form of imperialism rests on an understanding of imperialism as fluid, changing, and historically specific. That is, imperialism is not necessarily tied to formal colonial rule. Although George W. Bush denied during his presidency that the US had imperial ambitions (stating in 2002 that ‘we have no territorial ambitions, we don't seek an empire’),22 the power relationships that underscore imperialism have shaped the US’ role within the international system at various points since at least the end of World War I.

Julian Saurin makes the point that colonialism and empire should not be conflated; colonialism was simply ‘one form of imperialism’ and ‘modern’ imperialism has ‘metamorphosed in such a way as to retain the fundamental powers of imperialism while shedding the outward forms of colonialism’.23 That is, Edward Said explains, imperialism did not ‘suddenly become “past” once decolonization had set in motion the dismantling of the classical empires’.24 As Aijaz Ahmad point outs, imperialism as a power relation has ‘been with us for a very long time, in great many forms’, precisely because it has been able to ‘reinvent’ itself alongside the changing nature and structure of the international (economic and political) system.25 Most importantly, the function of power as I understand it (for example to create knowledge, identities, to govern the actions of states and peoples) can be exercised through informal imperialism that is non-territorial because this power exists beyond formal colonial rule. Although the end of European colonialism resulted in formal recognition of the ‘sovereignty’ of states, Alison J. Ayers writes that it is this ‘new’ international system in which ‘imperialism operates through formally independent ‘internationalised’ states’.26 This is then a particular modality of ‘informal imperialism’ that functions to restructure ‘the world’ in the image of the imperialist. For example, Ayers points to the ‘non-imperial languages and practices of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘democratisation’’ (creating particular political institutions, economic arrangements) through which contemporary ‘imperial governance has been realised’.27 The particular ways in which ‘democratisation’ (as gendered and racialised) legitimates intervention will be explored later in the chapter. Here, the practice is useful as an example of the way imperialism functions ‘not only free of colonial rule but antithetical to it’; in an era of ‘sovereignty’ the exercise of imperial power must occur through mechanisms that do not ‘look like’ formal colonial rule.28 An imperial impulse in US foreign policy can be read into attempts by the US to spread ‘Western’ liberal-democratic values and associated economic systems to various regions29 (for example, as I will discuss shortly, to those termed ‘underdeveloped’, which is itself a racialised and gendered concept). Understanding imperialism as existing in and (re)produced through relationships of political and economic dependency, rather than as something that is practiced only by colonial empires, the US can be understood as imperialist through attempts to ‘reshape’ the world according to ‘US values’,30 for example in the emergence of a liberal international system. I wish to make it clear here, however, that by looking at these attempts I am not suggesting that liberal internationalism is a conceit of the US (liberal internationalism and the specific liberal international system that emerged post-WWI and WWII has its origins in Europe as well as the US, for example).31 As Alex Callinicos argues, while there has been a ‘proliferation of international institutions under American leadership’, this has been ‘a complex process, moving through stops and starts, interrupted, contested, and sometimes reversed.’32 Rather, I am acknowledging that the US’ economic and military power33 has assisted in its ‘disproportionate role in shaping certain processes and situations’34 according to the US’ conception of liberal (political and economic) values, particularly in terms of (re)producing racialised and gendered identities and logics that have at various moments enabled intervention.

Liberal internationalism and the pre-1945 international system

A key moment at which the intersection between imperialism and ‘American liberal values’ can be read as racialised as well as gendered is the emergence of ‘liberal internationalism’. The political though of US President Woodrow Wilson is intricately linked to the development of liberal internationalism which has continued to be relevant beyond Wilson’s era, having been developed and in various ways since then.35 In its most basic sense, liberal internationalism refers to those theories and practices which posit that open markets, international institutions, a cooperative approach security, democracy, collective problem solving, and the rule of law are key to international security and global progress. Differing modalities of this type of liberalism can be discerned in the structure of the international order since early twentieth century. The post-WWI ‘Wilsonian era’ marks the first attempts to construct an international order based on liberal principles. Unpicking Wilson’s liberal internationalism as gendered and racialised is important in that the basic assumptions of this world view can be discerned in later expressions of liberalism in the international system. For example, the George W. Bush administration’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes has also been identified as resembling the liberal internationalism espoused by Wilson, expressed as ‘Wilsonianism with teeth.’36 As such, it is worth exploring how ‘Self’ and ‘Other’, relationships between various types of people and relatedly, (imperial) international intervention, have been discursively constructed here.