Democracies created by the US - I need a list.

[devilgrrl]

The only one I can think of is Japan, even though it's one party state. Where else has the US created a democracy?

[doc03]

1. Germany

[rockymountaindem]

2. Austria too

Though that was a joint effort with the USSR. It's an interesting story of Cold War cooperation.

[dave_p]

6. but

That's a revival rather than a creation, though, in fact founded on restoration of the 1920 constitution IIRC. Maybe we need clarification of the original Q.

[doc03]

27. You're right we took the Fascists out of control

similar to the last election in the US

[EFerrari]

8. We created democracy in Germany?

?

[dave_p]

20. restored

A restoration, rather than a creation. But it was a job reasonably well done, even if much of the ideological and economic content of the original democratization plan ended up ditched in favor of Cold War expediency.

[Mika]

3. Venezuela.

By uniting the vast majority of the people of Ven. against US hegemony.

[WiseButAngrySara]

25. ROFL! ....n/t

[dave_p]

4. Stumped!

It's not really a one-party state, that's just how they vote! But I guess that's what you meant. And Japan retained elements of democracy through the 1930s, so there were foundations to restore and build upon - to that extent it's not so unlike Germany.

I'm stumped too. You wouldn't like to change "created" to "destroyed"? That's so much easier!

[EFerrari]

5. Japan is a democracy? I thought it was a constitutional monarchy.

[dave_p]

10. not necessarily a contradiction

That's not contrary to the generally-accepted meaning though - the Emperor's technically the figurehead in a parliamentary system, as in the UK (though that's a constitutional monarchy without a written constitution).

But it raises the question "what is a democracy". I don't like the term because it's so subject to individual interpretation, and of course misuse - but I can live with a broad interpretation in this case.

[EFerrari]

14. Good point.

:)

[Warren Stupidity]

17. So is GB.

But more to the point Japan is about as 'democratic' as Mexico was under the PRI. A one party democracy is at best a deformed democracy.

[Crunchy Frog]

7. I believe that South Korea became a democracy

under US occupation, but I believe that they did that for themselves after many decades of living under heavily authoritarian rule. We didn't create the democracy, but we didn't stop it either, which is pretty good considering our overall record.

I would need to study up more on S Korean history to say more.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Not really.

SK was a military dictatorship after the end of the war. The dictatorship was abolished by the korean people in 1992. We did not bring democracy to Korea.

[Crunchy Frog]

34. I believe that's what I said in my post. n/t

[dave_p]

15. but... 1961

Occupation strictly ended in 1948, leaving the ROK as a nominally sovereign state (though recognised only by the West and denied a UN seat owing to the North's conflicting claim) under Rhee's increasingly authoritarian US-backed rule. A pro-democracy coup in 1960 was reversed with US approval the following year, though, so Democracty in western terms had to wait until the 1980s.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. 1992.

Amazingly it wasn't until 1992 that SK had free elections and ended military rule.

[katsy]

9. None.

Democracy cannot be force fed or it's not a democracy.

America once set an example. Now it's a jaded nation.

[dave_p]

26. Agreed

For me democracy's above all an aspiration that develops from a people's experience and from the complex linkages and political & cultural processes that underpin society. Democratization can take any number of forms, depending on local conditions, but the one thing you can't usefully do with it is impose your notion of democracy on others. Why? It's not democratic.

[katsy]

40. Welcome to DU, Dave...

very well stated.

[HamdenRice]

11. South Africa, sort of

Obviously, South Africans were very self-sufficient in creating their own democracy in the 1990s, but the US played a very constructive role at crucial times, in a very quiet way.

I was just listening to the McLaughlin Group, and two of the commentators were bashing US AID as a boondogle. But I saw first hand in the 1980s, the tremendous effect of US "soft power" especially through US AID in bolstering democratic ideals there.

In the early 1980s, most white South Africans were very racist and dictatorial, while many black South Africans were very anti-US and very pro-Soviet. Following the lead of the Ford Foundation, US AID began pouring money into black education and scholarships to US universities, while also bringing white South African judges and politicians to human rights conferences. The effect was slow but dramatic, and by 1990, almost all South Africans embraced democracy, human rights and mixed economic principles, so that negotiations were over structure and the constitution, not over basic principles.

I would definitely not say that the US created South African democracy, but it used very good, quiet aid and diplomacy to accomplish very positive goals.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. I don't think that is what the OP meant.

We did not establish democracy in SA, we may have been grudgingly dragged into helping the end of the aparthied regime (which by the way was democratic in the same sense that we were democratic until the end of segregation.)

I believe the OP means 'installed a democratic regime in a country that did not have democracy before that' and the closest we get is Japan with its one party corrupt system. Germany restored the democracy it had before Hitler.

[devilgrrl]

21. You got it, that's what I meant...

The BFEE likes to parade around stating that they're spreading "Freedom" and I asked the question to find out exactly where the US has "spread freedom" elsewhere. I my life time (1963 - present) I can't think of one, except what a previous poster stated that the US has helped destroy several "democracies" in Lebanon, Chile, Central America, etc...

[dave_p]

18. No

The US supported those obstructing SA's transition to majority rule for decades while it suited its global strategy. It only changed course with the end of the Cold War, when it decided it could do without its racist ally.

[HamdenRice]

31. That's a very simplistic view of what happened

I was very involved, first as a student activist, then as a consultant to foundations, and then as an African American grad student living, teaching and doing research in South Africa in the late 1980s. I've been back in 1993, 1994 and 2000. The relationship between South Africa and the US was very complex and very deep.

As I wrote in a post below, you have to disaggregate the "US". Right wing ideologues, like Reagan, did indeed support the apartheid regime, but the permanent US foreign policy bureaucracy was very involved in positive ways for a long time.

[malaise]

24. I would check those COngressional votes carefully before

you claim that the US helped RSA's democracy. The rest of the world led the way on that one. It was also one hell of a coincidence that AIDS spread through Southern Africa at the same time.

[HamdenRice]

30. On those Congressional votes

I think you have to disaggregate the "US". Of course, the Reagan administration was opposed to helping end apartheid. But the country, Congress and the Republican party were very different creatures back then.

In the fall of 1986, Reagan vetoed a bill that would place sanction on South Africa. Congress prepared to over-ride Reagan's veto.

Sen. Richard Lugar, a moderate Republican and foreign policy expert, and I think at the time chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave a very moving speech on the floor about why he would vote to over-ride Reagan's veto. Congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans then indeed over-rode Reagan's veto and sanctions became law.

The thing is, back then, there was a very competent permanent foreign policy bureaucracy at State Department and US AID, and despite Reagan's idiotic stance, most elements of the US government proceeded working quietly and diligently to help end apartheid.

South Africans followed this kind of news avidly, and it made a big difference.

[malaise]

41. Thanks HamdenRice

Happy New Year. :D

[rexcat]

13. A better question is how many democracies has the US destroyed?

Iran - 1953
Guatemala - 1954
Lebanon - 1957-1958
(just to name a few)

We have suppressed the democratic process in the following regions: Central America, South America, Caribbean basin, South East Asia (Viet man and S. Korea come to mind) and the Middle East. We have supported dictators in every part of the world except Western Europe and Japan. Not a good record! Maybe we should, as a country, be a little more introspective and clean up our act with regards to foreign policy. The world's people might be in a better situation if we (the US) had not interfered overtly and covertly around the world for American corporations (and even foreign corporations) such as United Fruit, Cocoa Cola, the precursor to BP, etc.

[Capn Amerika]

33. The CIA's hand in world events.

I can't remember where I saw this, but it was a report that laid out how easy it was for the CIA to "regime change" in already established free and democratic societies. Once they got their authoritarian thugs installed it was a lot harder to operate in that country as the dictators they installed learned the lessons of their own installation. Namely, suppression of the free press, torture, dirty tricks, etc. examples of this: Saddam, Noreiga, Marcos, Duvalier etc. Anybody know this report or have a link?

[Liberal Veteran]

19. Here is the absolute BEST article on that which documents our successes and failures

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1158

US track record on nation building
Country/ Years/ Multilateral or Unilateral/ Democracy after 10 yrs.?

1. Afghanistan 2001-present Multilateral ?

2. Haiti 1994 Multilateral NO

3. Panama 1989 Unilateral YES

4. Grenada 1983 Multilateral YES

5. Cambodia 1970-73 Unilateral NO

6. South Vietnam 1965-73 Unilateral NO

7. Dominican Rep. 1965-66 Unilateral NO

8. Japan 1945-52 Multilateral YES

9. West Germany 1944-49 Multilateral YES

10. Italy 1944-47 Multilateral YES

11. Dominican Rep. 1916-24 Unilateral NO

12. Cuba 1917-22 Unilateral NO

13. Haiti 1915-1919 Unilateral NO

14. Honduras 1924-1925 Unilateral NO

15. Nicaragua 1909-27 Unilateral NO

16. Mexico 1914 Unilateral NO

17. Nicaragua 1909 Unilateral NO

18. Cuba 1906-1909 Unilateral NO

[dave_p]

23. Note

... again, all the successes are restorations building on earlier traditions.

The two that come closest are probably Cuba and the Philippines, and both of those were pretty sorry excuses for the real thing.

And of course why should it be otherwise? For democracy to mean anything, it has to spring from the historical process of the people. "Democracy" at gunpoint is Empire by other means.

[Telly Savalas]

28. With the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the U.S. created a democracy in the U.S.

[EFerrari]

36. That we still fight for to this day. Thank you.

[Catchawave]

29. This reminds me of a quote....

About Iraq: "We're fighting for democracy over there, while we're losing it here"

[Capn Amerika]

32. Marshall Islands

After we nuked the fuck out of it. The Compact of Free Association means we own them but they are technically a democracy.

[mnhtnbb]

35. Panama--when it had US supported revolution from Colombia prior to

building the Canal--and when Poppa Bush sent in the US military to get rid of Noriega.

[ellisonz]

37. Define "democracy", define "created"

I'm sorry it's kind of a dumb question because its phrasing is very simplistic....

Better rendering: Where has the United States either facillitated the emergence of democratic government or restored it by force?

But either way...there is no right answer, any list would be tremendously flawed because it is a generalizing question.

;)

[H2O Man]

38. Florida n/t

[Cleita]

39. In places where true democracies have emerged after USA

intervention, I believe what we did was support the democratic factions already in place and allowed them to develop their own governments within a democratic model. I don't think any places we have forced democracy on have in fact developed democratic governments. I mean isn't Iraq an Islamic Republic now ruled by Sharia?

[genie_weenie]

42. Zero, this includes the events circa 1776-1789

There are no "Democracies" in the world today. The closest are a couple of the Swiss Cantons.