The Rise and Fall of Democracy Promotion in US Foreign Policy - From Carter to Biden

The Rise and Fall of Democracy Promotion in US Foreign Policy employs a transformational change framework to understand US democracy promotion from 1977 until the present day.

American exceptionalism is a framework that has driven the US since the founding days of the republic, charging the US to promote the universal values of liberty and the pursuit of happiness around the world. Providing a frame of continuity for successive administrations, it reinforces the mythology of American exceptionalism in the eyes of the American people and the world. In different eras, different presidential worldviews, along with different international and domestic factors, have shaped how each administration has acted in the international arena and yet all have employed this language regardless of the policies pursued.

This timely volume maps-out and interrogates through four key indicators the rise and fall of democracy promotion at the conceptualisation, rhetori