Democracy Promotion Quotes

The American preoccupation with promoting democracy abroad fits into a larger liberal view about the sources of a stable, legitimate, secure, and prosperous international order.

American interests dictate that we teach other peoples to govern themselves.

I believe that democracy will prevail, so long as the United States stays with these young democracies to help them.

It is not democracy to send in billions of dollars to push regime change overseas. It isn't democracy to send in the NGOs to re-write laws and the constitution in places like Ukraine. It is none of our business.

From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy.

My job is to try to advance American foreign policy, to try to advance the president's agenda on democracy and human rights.

In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, it seemed that the liberal story had won. The liberal story says that humankind is inevitably marching towards a global society of free markets and democratic politics.

We do have to take the long-term view. And long term, the question to ask ourselves is whether America should attack others pre-emptively, whether she should embroil herself in wars far away from our soil, and try to bring democracy by force to the rest of the world.

Neoconservatives habitually overstate America’s ability to export democracy.

Taiwan matters because of its vital role in spreading democracy in East Asia. Taiwan matters because of its strategic importance to promote peace in the Pacific region.

The Czech Republic is a dynamic United Nations Member State, active on the Human Rights Council, contributing to the peaceful settlement of disputes, and helping other countries to achieve a democratic transition.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

We should not pretend that we can remake the domestic structures of governments all over the world.

After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.

Democratic societies with established institutions must help those societies that do not yet have established institutions.

What we want for the Iranian people is control over their own government, which they don't have now. So you would do it through supplying resources and support from the outside to the indigenous people who are already quite unhappy. The mullahs have made hash of the economy since 1979, there's a huge amount of economic dissatisfaction. The young people, who are pretty well educated and sophisticated, know they could have a better life than this strict Islamic law.

People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.

And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn't buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals.

Although fostering a peaceful, prosperous and equitable hemisphere is clearly in the best interest of the United States, Washington has not always supported Central America's struggle for economic survival.

The American system is, in many ways, more difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I guess, you're out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours.

The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.

If my goal were to spread democracy, Iraq would be the last country that I would use as a demonstration.

It's not the job of the U.S. military to do nation-building or produce democratic utopias.

Some who call themselves realists question whether the spread of democracy in the Middle East should be any concern of ours. But the realists in this case have lost contact with a fundamental reality: America has always been less secure when freedom is in retreat; America is always more secure when freedom is on the march.

Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office.