Investigating the Democracy Promotion during the Presidency of Barack Obama

Abstract

President Barack Obama’s tenure in office was characterized by a wounded democracy promotion strategy. The Bush administration involvement in forced regime change, the erosion of America’s standing as a beacon of democracy and human rights, and the economic crisis in the United States left Obama with a limited scope to pursue a coherent foreign policy agenda. The present research paper argues that most aspects of President Obama’s democracy policy represent a significant continuation of the overall direction of US democracy policy. The main distinction is that the United States has now abandoned its overarching foreign policy narrative based on the notion of reshaping the world in its own image. In line with this, U.S. debatable response to the Arab spring was a turning point in democracy promotion. It concludes that U.S. democracy promotion approach during the presidency of Obama was contradictory as the government balanced relations with certain countries and backed democracy promotion with others.