Democracy and the Post-Cold War Era

A spirit of triumphalism in the West swiftly followed the ideological collapse of communism. In the most famous statement of this doctrine, Fukuyama proclaimed that history had finally ended with the universal victory of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.1 Certainly, the post-Cold War era offers a unique historical opportunity to extend democracy across the globe. And there is good reason for democrats everywhere to be euphoric: in the seventh year after bipolarity and the end of the Cold War, more people now live under democracy than dictatorship (118 of the world’s 193 countries are democratic).2 The collapse of the Soviet Union and its loss of two layers of empire alone created several dozen potential democracies, paving the way for international cooperation across the erstwhile Cold War divide. With no single clear and dangerous threat on the horizon to replace the Soviet menace, the United States is free to pursue strategies other than containment; America’s surplus of security means that it can now devote far greater resources than ever before to its traditional mission of fostering liberal democracy abroad.3 But while the Clinton administration has consistently made the promotion of democracy the capstone of its foreign policy, the American people have shown little interest in this goal and Congress has actually cut funding for programmes that support democracy.4