Democracy promotion never actually achieves its objective but does incite western interventions and creates a systematic racial nullification of marginalized bodies’ autonomy

Fabio Santino Bussmann, Lorena Granja Hernández PhD, “Undemocratic by color: The hidden racial logic and hierarchical structure of US military interventions to promote democracy in Latin America”, CARTA International, 29 March 2022,

Undemocratic by color

Effective liberal democracies are, for Quijano, not only about political rights and institutions but, also, necessarily, about a limited distribution of the control of productive resources, of land for instance (Quijano 2005), without which political democratization would not happen or only be formal and unstable (Quijano 2014). The distribution of political rights and productive resources would, together, be the expression of some social equality (Quijano 2002).

Social equality is limited, in modern and western societies themselves, by the effects of capital and individualism. Nevertheless, social equality has its place in this kind of society, because it is an interest of dominant groups to distribute some productive resources as means to lessen social conflict and strengthen internal markets (Quijano 2014).

The prerequisite, however, for these political and economic elites to pursue these interests and bring about some social equality would be to see the populations of their countries as equally human (even if not equal in social position). This would only be possible precisely in western countries, where the racial homogeneity of white majority populations has kept away the mental effects of racism (and dehumanization) in the relation between the elites and the largest portion of the population (Quijano 2005; 2014).

In LA countries, making concessions to the racialized and dehumanized population was unthinkable for the elites and, therefore, not even some social equality did become a reality (Quijano 2005). High socioeconomic inequality, related to the lack of distribution of productive resources, is, indeed, not only well-known but also a measured reality in the region since the 80’ (see table 1).

Political and/or socio-economic impediments to democratization were the situation of the oligarchic republics of LA in the nineteenth century (Quijano 2002; 2005); of the populist regimes established in the region in the twentieth century, that advanced the distribution of income, but not of productive resources (Quijano 2013); and of military dictatorships also in the twentieth century, especially in South America. Oligarchy, populism, and authoritarianism are all regimes that fall short of the western model of democracy. Their occurrence in LA meant, thereby, that from the modern and western perspective about democracy, the region has been in an undemocratic, or, at least, lesser democratic predicament.

Beyond the fact that the history of LA countries shows a pattern of restrictions, instability, and dismissal of formal liberal-democratic institutions, through periods of oligarchic republics, populism, dictatorships and, more recently, disguised Coups d’états, also places and times in LA that saw the establishment of formal liberal-democracies have had a low-quality informal contact of the population with democratic institutions and practices.

In that sense, around the time the US alleged democratic promotion to interfere (indirectly or non-militarily) or intervene (directly and militarily) in LA countries11, being these at this moment formal liberal democracies or not, the levels of support for democracy and political activism were low in the region, the perception that elections were fraudulent was frequent, the extent of participation in civil society and social group equality (including race and religion concerning the distribution of political power and enjoyment of civil rights) were many times low and, at best, mid-range (see table 1).12

The fact that these low indicators of informal quality of the democratic system are accompanied by high levels of economic inequality, in LA, shows that there is a correspondence between the two instances in a region where all the countries have most of their populations racialized. This indicates that there is concrete substance and plausibility to the decolonial argument that dehumanization prompted by racialization results in especially high levels of social inequality and that this last reality is an obstacle to the establishment of liberal democracy working as western ones13 in LA. This is beyond the fact that dehumanization also impinges very negatively on the formal elements of democracy themselves. This through the historical disrespect of Latin-American elites, whenever in their westernized interests and against the interest of the racialized majorities, of the continuity of even formal liberal-democratic institutions, manifest in the many moments and kinds of Coups d’états.

The coloniality of US military interventions to promote democracy in LA and its structural-hierarchical logic

As soon as liberal democracy became a western reality, it also constituted a universalized model (Mignolo 2020a). Ex-colonial LA countries, which, as seen, structurally tend to deviate from this “truth” about politics imposed by western epistemic totalitarianism, would become targets of westernization, in the form of democratization. This undeclared continuity of the civilizational mission also expressed itself in terms of inter-state security and violence. LA states have suffered military interventions, mainly by the US or US-led coalitions, openly justified/motivated14 by democracy promotion. Reinforcing Meernik’s (1996) claim that democracy promotion is a primary justification/ motivation for US military interventions, the cases we analyze from 1965 to 2005 show that democracy promotion was alleged by US governments in all these interventions (see table 1). This allows us to say that, in the cases seen here, the US regarded each LA country they intervened in as undemocratic or, at least, lesser democratic.

The US legitimization of its interventions on the grounds of democracy promotion is continuously possible since, as seen, LA countries do, in fact, not have, because of the structural reality of coloniality and its racial dehumanization, liberal democracies working as western ones, as shown, even if in a limited time frame, by the mentioned low indicators about liberal democracy in LA15. This shows a systematic correlation, what we theoretically take as structural causality, of the lesser liberal democratic condition of LA countries and the US having a continuous legitimized reason for military interventions in the region on the ground of democracy promotion.

The structural character of this legitimacy reveals itself as hierarchical if one looks closer at the epistemic and political logic of military interventions done by the US in LA in the name of democracy. Democracy is directly linked to nationality not only in Quijano’s (2002, 2005) decolonial thought but, more generally, in European (Eurocentric) history, since the Enlightenment, when “people’s sovereignty” became the tenet on which both nationalization and democratization began to be drawn in the West after the American and French Revolutions.

The words the US used to legitimize their first military interventions in LA, the Mexican-American War, illustrate the understanding that the legitimization of US military intervention to promote democracy abroad operates in the logic that if there is no democracy as practiced in the West there is no sovereignty of the people that can be upheld by the government, that, thereby, does not represent the nation and the sovereignty of the state anymore. As Meernik (1996) tells us, in the mentioned war, it was not only the right of Texans to democracy that was upheld but also the right to self-determination. Military interventions in the name of democracy have been fought by the US since the beginning as liberations wars, in which the US knows what democracy is (and isn’t) on the behalf of other peoples, and, through the connection between democracy and self-determination, delegitimize local governments as representatives of state sovereignty.

Since the US, as part of the West, and not LA, can enunciate what democracy is (at the epistemic level), and since, in the region, democracy, as practiced in the West, is never attained, the US, functions, in practice, as the constant guardian, and, if necessary and in the American interest, military enforcer, of democracy and permanent bestower of the rights of self-determination and sovereignty onto the countries of the region.

The systematic character of the potentiality (and reality) of US military interventions to promote democracy in LA shows the US as the de facto regional government, or super-sovereign, in epistemic, political, and military terms. When intervention is not an exception to sovereignty but a structural possibility16, which expresses a judgment, on the behalf of other peoples, if they have democratic rule and, as a consequence, if their government represents self-determination and holds legitime sovereignty, it constitutes rather a policing activity than war, and policing is a typical activity of governments.

This policing activity is not simply a matter of superior military, and/or (soft)power of one state over others that are weaker but functionally alike and equally sovereign and, thereby, relate to the stronger state in an anarchical structure (Waltz 1979), but a functional differentiation between a country that is a regional police force, taking over a function that would belong to the sovereign jurisdiction of another country (hyperfunctionality), deciding if it is democratic and its people self-determined, and states that become policed by it, suffering a structural and systematic nullification of their the (de facto) sovereignty/ autonomy17 over decisions that would be of internal concern (hypofunctionality).

This hyperfunctional acting of the US as a de facto regional government, and the parallel structural lack of de facto sovereignty/autonomy of LA countries, or their hypofunctionality, shows that, in this US-LA epistemic, political, and military relational context, the international structure is not anarchical. This is because, the two elements of international politics that compose structural anarchy, the absence of an international government , and the functional alikeness, sovereign equality (Waltz 1979) and autonomy among political units (Buzan, Jones and Little 1993) 18, meaning that these units would be able to decide for themselves how they will cope with their “…internal and external problems” (Waltz 1979)19, are effectively missing in this regional and thematic context.