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This broad-gauged account of U.S. democracy promotion seeks to explain
why significant continuity has characterized the policies of widely divergent
U.S. presidents, from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. Locating her answer
in a probing dissection of the underlying worldview of U.S. diplomats and
aid practitioners, the author eschews well-worn critiques and instead offers
analytic richness and insight. An in-depth study of the crucial case of U.S.
policy toward Egypt provides useful empirical grounding.
— Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, Washington, DC

Poppe’s book offers deep insights into fundamental drivers of the stability
of US democracy promotion. Scholars interested in international relations
will profit from her innovative approach that combines the study of political
culture and foreign policy orientation and thus makes this book a creative
crossover study. Policy makers seeking for allies in democracy promotion
will be relieved to learn that ‘there is much more iceberg underneath than
above the waterline’.
— Julia Leininger, German
Development Institute, Bonn

The main strength of the book consists in adding an interesting and compel-
ling argument to the constructivist approach to foreign policy-making and
democracy promotion studies. Democracy promotion studies, in contrast
to Democratization studies, have been on the back foot for a few years now.
Due to the rather mitigated outcome of the Arab Spring and the recent lack
of interest from the current US administration in the matter, some observ-
ers have declared that there was not much to be said anymore concerning
democracy promotion. This is not the case – as shown by this study, which
contributes to the field in an original and rigorous way.
— Jeff Bridoux, Aberystwyth University, Wales

With the prospects for democracy promotion by the United States appear-
ing dim currently, this book is an extremely timely and important contri-
bution to the literature. Annika Elena Poppe makes a strong argument as
to the enduring stability and influence of the assumptions and world view
behind U.S. democracy promotion, even in unlikely challenging cases such
as Egypt. Her key finding of a stable core and an adaptable periphery to this
outlook in Washington will be invaluable in understanding how this strand
of U.S. foreign policy fares during the Trump administration and beyond.
— Nicolas Bouchet, German Marshall Fund of the
United States, Berlin
US Democracy Promotion
after the Cold War

This book explores the often assumed but so far not examined proposition
that a particular U.S. culture influences U.S. foreign policy behavior or, more
concretely, that widely shared basic assumptions embraced by members of
the U.S. administration have a notable impact on foreign policy-making.
Publicly professed beliefs regarding America’s role in the world and about
democracy’s universal appeal – despite much contestation – go to the heart
of U.S. national identity. Employing extensive foreign policy text analysis
as well as using the case study of U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relations during
the Clinton, Bush junior, and Obama administrations, it shows that basic
assumptions matter in U.S. democracy promotion in general, and the book
operationalizes them in detail as well as employs qualitative content analy-
sis to assess their validity and variation.
The research presented lies at the intersection of International Relations,
U.S. foreign policy, regional studies, and democracy promotion. The spe-
cific focus on the domestic ‘cultural’ angle for the study of foreign policy and
this dimension’s operationalization makes it a creative crossover study and
a unique contribution to these overlapping fields.

Annika Elena Poppe is project director and senior researcher at the Peace
Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Her research focuses on international
democracy promotion, U.S. foreign policy, and the global phenomenon of
shrinking civic spaces. She is coordinator of the German research network
‘External Democracy Promotion’ (EDP), member of the International Con-
sortium on Closing Civic Spaces (iCon) hosted by CSIS, and has worked as
a consultant for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ)
in 2016–2017.
Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy
Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, City University, and John Dumbrell,
University of Durham

This new series sets out to publish high-quality works by leading and
emerging scholars critically engaging with United States Foreign Policy.
The series welcomes a variety of approaches to the subject and draws on
scholarship from international relations, security studies, international
political economy, foreign policy analysis and contemporary international
history.
Subjects covered include the role of administrations and institutions, the
media, think tanks, ideologues and intellectuals, elites, transnational cor-
porations, public opinion, and pressure groups in shaping foreign policy,
US relations with individual nations, with global regions and global institu-
tions and America’s evolving strategic and military policies.
The series aims to provide a range of books – from individual research
monographs and edited collections to textbooks and supplemental reading
for scholars, researchers, policy analysts and students.

Foreign Policy Issues for America

The Trump Years
Edited by Richard W. Mansbach and James M. McCormick

Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism

Prejudice and Pride about the USA
Brendon O’Connor

US Democracy Promotion after the Cold War

Stability, Basic Premises, and Policy toward Egypt
Annika Elena Poppe

Kissinger, Angola and US-African Foreign Policy

The Unintentional Realist
Steven O’Sullivan

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

series/RSUSFP
US Democracy Promotion
after the Cold War
Stability, Basic Premises,
and Policy toward Egypt

Annika Elena Poppe

First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Annika Elena Poppe
The right of Annika Elena Poppe to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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Contents

List of figures xi
List of tables xiii
Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1
Why policy change seemed compelling 2
Identity and culture as an inhibitor to change 5
U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt as the litmus test 8
The U.S. foreign policy elite as the key actor 9
Key contributions and chapter outline 11

1 U.S. democracy promotion: determinants, debates, and the

diagnosis of continuity in the post-Cold War era 16
Concepts of democracy and democracy promotion 16
From democratic euphoria to digesting the
authoritarian backlash 18
The diagnosis of continuity in the strategic-operational
sphere of U.S. democracy promotion 21
The Clinton administration: enlargement of the
community of market democracies 22
The Bush administration: a Freedom Agenda
for the world 29
The Obama administration: adapting democracy
promotion in times of adversity 36
The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations in
comparative perspective 43

2 National identity, political culture, and the democracy

promotion worldview: theoretical framework and
methodological approach 52
The theoretical approach 53
General suppositions within the broader theoretical strands 53
viii Contents
The basic premises in the framework of national identity
and political culture 54
On the conceptual relationship between interests
and values 59
Language and political practice 62
How and why culture promotes stability 65
Expectations 68
The methodological approach 68
The suitability of employing content analysis
for this study 69
Basic tenets and criteria of content analysis 71
Development of category scheme and text sample 73
The content analysis for the U.S.-Egypt case study 75

3 Approximating the basic premises of U.S. democracy

promotion after the Cold War 80
U.S. democracy promotion and its relevance for national
identity formation 80
The basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion
in the literature 83
Premise 1: democracy is a universal(ly aspired to) value 85
Premise 2: external actors can and should support
democratization 86
Premise 3: democratization is a struggle between
identifiable ‘good’ and ‘bad’ 87
Premise 4: democratization requires no preconditions
and is a relatively smooth process 88
Premise 5: all good things go together 90
The basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion:
the bigger picture 91
The basic premises in the challenge ground 93

4 The basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion: major

changes in form, minor changes in content 101
Results of the qualitative-quantitative content analysis 101
Premise 1: democracy is a universal(ly aspired to) value 102
Premise 2: external actors can and should support
democratization 106
Premise 3: democratization is a struggle between
identifiable ‘good ‘and ‘bad’ 112
Premise 4: democratization requires no preconditions
and is a relatively smooth process 119
Premise 5: all good things go together 121
 Contents ix
General observations 129
Presidency-specific observations 133
The Clinton presidency 133
The Bush presidency 135
The Obama presidency 136
Discussion and interpretation: the post-Cold War
U.S. democracy promotion worldview 138
Observations in and of the U.S. democracy promotion
practitioner community 144

5 Premises in the challenge ground: U.S. policy toward Egypt (I) 156
A brief history of the U.S.-Egyptian relationship 157
The Clinton administration: strong on Mubarak support,
quiet on the democracy front 161
The Bush administration: from democracy promotion
excitement to retreat 164

6 Premises in the challenge ground: U.S. policy toward Egypt (II) 179
The Obama administration: navigating difficult waters
and returning to safe havens 179
Business as usual – the Obama administration before
the Egyptian uprisings 180
Surprised and underprepared – the U.S. during the
18 days of upheaval 182
Scrambling to walk the tightrope – the
post-‘revolutionary’ period 188
Conclusion: U.S. democracy promotion in the
case of Egypt 201

Conclusion 214
The course of this study and major findings 214
The U.S. democracy promotion worldview: a stable core
and an adaptable periphery 217
Whence the stability? Empirical and theoretical
considerations 222
The case of Egypt in a broader research perspective
and the interest-value divide 227
The question of discursive hegemony, other factors for
stability, and research implications 232
Outlook: is there potential for change on the horizon? 238
x Contents
Epilogue: democracy promotion under the Trump administration 245
Enter the Trump administration – an assessment of
the first two years 246
Whither to, democracy promotion in
(post-)Trump America? 250

Appendix 259
Bibliography 263
Index 279

Please note that an online resource is available as an additional appen-

dix, providing more information on methodology and the operationaliza-
tion of the basic premises, including the codebook employed for content
analysis. The online appendix also documents all primary sources used in
all content analyses. It can be accessed at: https://www.hsfk.de/fileadmin/
HSFK/hsfk_downloads/OnlineAppendixPoppeRoutledge_USDemocracy
PromotionAfterTheColdWar.pdf.
List of figures

4.1 Number of assigned codings in relative terms to overall sample 102

4.2 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 1 103
4.3 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 2a 107
4.4 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 2b 109
4.5 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 2c 111
4.6 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 3 (subsection dichotomy/
complexity) 112
4.7 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 3 (subsection: handling of
nondemocratic nongovernmental actors) 115
4.8 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 3 (subsection: handling of
nondemocratic governmental actors) 116
4.9 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for
each presidency sample in category 4 (subsection:
democratization as smooth or troubled process) 120
4.10 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 4 (subsection: potential need
of preconditions) 120
4.11 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 5 (subsection: values mutual) 122
4.12 Number of assigned codings in relative terms for each
presidency sample in category 5 (subsection: interests mutual) 125
4.13 Relative occurrence rate of arguments pertaining to the five
premises 129
4.14 Preliminary findings: the basic premises of U.S. democracy
promotion – core and periphery 143
C.1 The basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion – core
and periphery 217
List of tables

3.1 The basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion in the

challenge ground 97
4.1 Comparison of results for basic premises’ relevance (policy
elite & practitioners) 150
A.1 Results of content analysis of U.S. official statements in
relative numbers 259
A.2 Results of content analysis of U.S. official statements in
absolute numbers 260
Acknowledgments

When I began turning my dissertation into this book, I happened to re-

read David Welch’s 2005 Painful Choices. A Theory of Foreign Policy Change
(Princeton University Press). A key rationale that he offers for his book’s
approach lingered in my mind for a while. And it made me realize that the
truth of it I had only come to fully appreciate in the last few years. Welch
(2005: 8) reminds us that ‘[l]eaders have right brains as well as left. They
are driven as much by passion as by reason’. I had already understood this
in the sense that my research interest during the course of my project had
more and more focused on how policy makers perceive the world and how
ideas and values shape their behavior, (de)motivate, (in)secure, and ground
them. But the right-brain/left-brain conundrum, of course, extends beyond
leaders and policy makers to all people. Even to life in academia, where the
analytical and rational part of our beings is still overvalued at the expense
of the key role that the more intuitive-emotional part plays for our sense of
worth and belonging.
On a more personal level, Welch’s statement reminded me that for writing
a book – as for any kind of large analytical undertaking – we depend on
both sides of the brain more than most of us realize. It might take the left
brain to get the project started and to provide the analytical bandwidth to
work on a project of this depth. But it certainly takes the right side to sustain
us in the process for years, remain healthy, and to provide us with the cour-
age to finally finish. And for the latter part particularly, it is the friendship
and support of our fellow beings, of our families, friends, and colleagues
that we rely on most. While this book would not have been written with-
out the professional and collegial support, the sparring partnerships, and
the steady peer review of so many people at the Peace Research Institute
­Frankfurt (PRIF) and beyond, it would also not have come into existence
without those of you who have had my back over the years and who have
reminded me of what is really important in life (…it’s not the books we write,
as gratifying as that can be eventually). And lucky for me, these groups over-
lap to a large extent.
Acts of granting recognition and expressions of gratitude are not running
in abundance in the academic world. Now that it is my turn, and since these
xvi Acknowledgments
pages are entirely mine, I will not hold back. I would like to express my deep
gratitude to those whose paths I have crossed in my little academic corner
of the world and who have influenced me and my work:
Harald Müller, for his steady encouragement as my first supervisor,
whose door was always open and particularly for the much appreciated
feedback loops toward the end of the writing period in 2015. Jonas Wolff,
my second supervisor, but much more importantly, my one true mentor for
the past ten years. Thank you for all your insight and encouragement and
for time and again throwing me into cold water as if it was the most natu-
ral thing to do, allowing me to learn so much. Our so-called ‘diss team’ of
2013–2015, particularly Ellie and Marcel, for their invaluable peer support
and for nudging me into doing my best during troubled times. Marco, for
those moments of support that were sincere. The mentorship of more ad-
vanced scholars in our research field whom I had the fortune to meet over
the years and who would cheer me on and provide constructive feedback,
among them: Tom Carothers – I still smile at the fact that it took me so
much courage to contact you many years ago and that, after a good hour of
conversation, I left your office with the sense, for the first time ever, that my
dissertation project could actually really work the way I had envisioned it.
Thank you for having been a steady source of insight and exchange since.
Jeff Bridoux and Nick Bouchet for providing valuable feedback as (orig-
inally anonymous) reviewers of this book, but even more for many years
of collegial friendship and very enjoyable cooperation. Jeff and Nick and
also David Welch for providing the final push to return to my research and
turn the dissertation into a proper book three years after submission and
defense at Goethe University Frankfurt.
For allowing the dissertation and this book to become, I would also like
to gratefully acknowledge:
Jochen Hils for sparking my interest in U.S. foreign policy and democracy
promotion as a student in the mid-2000s and for encouragement and a nev-
er-failing sense of ironic humor ever since. The uncredited interview part-
ners and all those willing to chat over coffee and share their perspectives
in Washington, DC in 2011, and particularly Robert Lieber and the De-
partment of Government at Georgetown University for providing me with
an academic home base for the duration of my research visit. The German
National Academic Foundation and PRIF for providing scholarships (and
thus my financial peace of mind) for the dissertation project in the years
from 2010 to 2015. All my much esteemed fellow travelers in the research
network ‘External Democracy Promotion’ (EDP Network) and the ­Leibniz
Association that has sponsored the network from 2015 to 2019, enabling
me to complete this book project as a postdoc. The Heidelberg Center for
American Studies at Heidelberg University for recognizing my work with
the Rolf Kentner Dissertation Award 2017. The series and department ed-
itors with Routledge, among them Inderjeet Parmar, Claire Maloney, and
 Acknowledgments xvii
Robert Sorsby. The fellowship and camaraderie at PRIF: an aggregated
thank you to its ‘support structure’ and to so many colleagues who some-
times turned into friends. Among them, over the years, in strict alpha-
betical order: Achim, Andi, Ann-Kristin, Arvid, Aviv, Babette, Barbara,
Boris, ­Carmen, Caro, Caroline, Carsten, Christine, Clara, Claudia, ­Connie,
­Cornelia, Daniel, Dirk, Evgeniya, Gregor, Idil, Irene, Karima, Karin, KDW,
Melanie, Niklas, Nina, Peter, Sabine, Simone, Steffi, Thilo, ­Thorsten, Una,
Vera, and the ‘Seniorenkleeblatt’.
For research and editing support, I would also like to gratefully acknowl-
edge in ‘chronological’ order:
Sophia Zender for research on the 2011–2013 ‘NGO crisis’ in Egypt.
­Caroline Margaux Haury for research on the U.S. handling of the 2005 elec-
tions in Egypt. Vera Rogova for assisting in compiling and sorting through
the challenging lists of primary documents. Nora Berger-Kern for research
and editing support, particularly for the second half of the book. Jana Bal-
dus for valiant research, management, and editing support during the final
weeks of book manuscript preparation.
The right side of my brain is much indebted to many more people than
those who have more immediately contributed to my engagement with this
study. You know who you are but I need to write it out loud:
My parents, Margit and Ulli, and my sister, Carina, who might still some-
times wonder what the hell I was doing all those years but who supported
me nevertheless – fully and without hesitation. Where (and who?) would I be
without you? My beloved ‘Dorffamilie’ – my cousin and always our ‘little
one’ Alexandra, my late aunt Tina, whom we miss so dearly, and my grand-
mother Hella. You taught me that there is much wisdom in young and old.
My oldest and dearest friends for far over a decade… Asmus, Caro, Eric,
Jérôme, Sebastian – for your steady friendship in many different shapes, for
much distraction, laughter and joy, for grounding, mirroring and coach-
ing, for hours and hours of heartfelt exchanges in cafés, on couches, moving
vehicles, and joint trips. More recent acquaintances and friends who have
become important to me and who I would not want to miss: Aviv, Christina,
Clara, Jakob, Kristina, Masha, Nina, Sören as well as Babette and ­Titus,
Carsten and Sabine, Dirk and Saskia, Jen and Wayne, Julia and Quoc,
­Karima and Aymar, Annika and our continuing ‘Gomera-Wandergruppe’,
and my sangha at Timo’s studio.
And since this is such an enjoyable practice in gratitude, let me extend it
to people I have only briefly met but whose dedication to their work has had
a profound impact on me: Adriene Mishler for opening up a new path that
will resonate all through this journey (Aviv, thank you again for introducing
us). Garth Brooks, with whom I have probably not much in common, but
who has reared me in the American language from an early age onward,
enabling my emotional and later, intellectual access to the English language
world with such ease. Ron D. Moore and his colleagues for writing such
xviii Acknowledgments
intelligent and entertaining distraction and thought-provoking social com-
mentary in the form of science fiction… the wisdom and art of Battlestar
Galactica has yet to be surpassed. My heartfelt thanks also to my guitar for
providing many challenges, much self-reflection, and pure joy. And to all the
yoga mats, meditation pillows, hiking paths, treadmills, and bikes that have
sustained and grounded me over the years.
Introduction

The United States’ policy of democracy promotion has, at least since the
ending of the Cold War, been subjected to a manifold array of factors that
have pointed toward policy change rather than continuity. These range from
international developments, such as the superseding of the ‘liberal honey-
moon’ period of the 1990s by what has been called a ‘global backlash’ against
democracy (promotion) in the 2000s, to domestic developments, such as two
elections that brought administrations to power that vowed to significantly
change U.S. democracy promotion policy. Curiously, though, the literature
on U.S. democracy promotion has come to a fairly unanimous verdict: for
the three post-Cold War presidencies, U.S. democracy promotion has been
much more characterized by continuity than by change. Scholarship on the
transition from the Clinton to the Bush presidency has closed that chapter
with the diagnosis of continuity and studies on U.S. democracy promotion
under Obama have emphasized strong indications of continuity, too.1 From
the early 1990s to the mid-2010s, the resources mustered for democracy pro-
motion have fairly steadily increased, the bureaucratic structure has been
put into place and strongly anchored, the policy’s instruments have been
diversified, and democracy promotion has been consistently considered a
strategic imperative.
How come U.S. democracy promotion policy is so relatively stable in light
of arguably strong pressure for change? Inspired by this puzzling continuity,
I pursue one particular and so far little explored angle that is a likely candi-
date for providing an explanation for the relative stability of U.S. democracy
promotion policy, namely the basic premises that inform this policy. These
basic premises – henceforth, sometimes referred to as the ‘U.S. democracy
promotion worldview’ – are part of U.S. political culture and identity and
should thus, in principle, have the potential to promote stability in foreign
policy behavior. The first research question this book engages with asks:
Can the stability of the U.S. democracy promotion worldview plausibly ac-
count for the puzzling continuity of U.S. democracy promotion policy?
Grounding my research in constructivist/interpretivist reasoning and
methodology, I pursue two empirical goals. After having established the
shape and content of the diagnosed continuity in U.S. democracy promotion,
2 Introduction
I first assess the content and variability of its basic premises for the Clinton,
Bush junior, and Obama governments. Having thus analyzed the general
and the ‘global’ U.S. democracy promotion perspective, in the second step
I turn to a more concrete case of this policy and thus to the second research
question: How does the U.S. democracy promotion worldview fare in a par-
ticularly challenging environment? In order to answer this question, I trace
the fate of these premises in an important and very challenging case of po-
litical practice, namely U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt.
This introductory chapter first discusses the different pointers for change,
thereby discarding as relevant several factors that are often considered pro-
viders of stability. It also makes the case for looking at the ideational foun-
dation of a policy as a likely candidate for explaining its stability. I then lay
out in more detail my approach, explaining the rationale for choosing Egypt
as a case study as well as my reasons for focusing mostly on a certain part of
the U.S. foreign policy elite. Finally, I discuss key contributions of this study
and offer a chapter by chapter overview.
It should be noted that the original research for this study was finalized
during the second Obama administration. As the presidency of Donald
Trump can be read as a challenge to the findings, I have extended the book
to include an additional epilogue chapter at the end. This chapter addresses
the Trump presidency with the purpose of summarizing what, so far, can
be said about his administration’s take on U.S. democracy promotion and
also analyzes and evaluates this presidency in light of the findings and ex-
pectations of my study, to the extent that this is already possible in the early
days of 2019.

Why policy change seemed compelling

Long before current discussions about a potential global ‘democratic re-
cession’ and ‘autocratization wave’ (Cassani and Tomini 2019; Diamond
2015) emerged, the policy of international democracy promotion had run
into trouble and was going through a sustained rough patch. The global
endeavor that most ‘Western’ states once subscribed to as central in their
foreign policy agendas is facing severe challenges from different direc-
tions. Long gone is the democratic euphoria that followed the ‘third wave’
(­Huntington 1991) of democratization and the end of the Cold War, provid-
ing ‘Western’ democracies with the opportunity of actively pursuing their
vision of a liberal, democratic, and capitalistic world order (Geis et al. 2007:
72). Whereas the 1990s witnessed a debate about the ‘right to democracy’
(Fox and Roth 2000; Franck 1992) and the global community’s ‘normative
integration’ (Brock 1999), scholars diagnosed a global backlash against de-
mocracy and its active promotion in the mid-2000s.2 Among its symptoms
are the manifestation of growing resistance to (prescribed) democracy mod-
els ‘on the ground’, the confidence with which authoritarian regimes in the
past years have brushed off democratization pressures, and the fact that
 Introduction 3
catchwords such as ‘sovereignty’ and ‘ownership’ have regained strength in
the general debate. The global state of democracy is at minimum sobering,
arguably even declining (Carothers 2013: 196). Moreover, the effectiveness
of democracy promotion as a policy has been put into question. Liberal
democracy, once declared to be the only and final survivor of the battle of
ideas at ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama 1989), is challenged by competing
visions as well as beset by practical problems.
This crisis of democracy (promotion) in the international context is
­particularly relevant for the U.S. and the designing of its foreign policy
(Gunitsky 2018; Schmitter 2015). Not only is the U.S. the globally most active
and important democracy promoter, it is also often blamed for the interna-
tional malaise and is thus the bearer of the major brunt of criticism. Changes
in democracy promotion policy could then be spurred by the aforementioned
difficult global situation, in which the U.S. no longer has a hold on a unipolar
momentum but faces increasingly assertive and potentially value-exporting
authoritarian powers while it discusses its own relative decline on the world
stage. Change could also arise from the difficulties that U.S. democracy pro-
motion has run into ‘on the ground’, as it has been trying, with very mixed
but rarely sustainably positive results, to promote its vision of democracy
under varying circumstances and in different types of countries.
Critique and challenges do, however, not only come from the outside and
the changing international context, domestic developments have pointed to-
ward change as well. Democratic President Clinton, early in his presidency
and spurred on by the liberal triumphalism of the 1990s, attempted to ele-
vate democracy promotion to the status of a national grand strategy. But
the policy became a bone of contention in the years of intensifying party po-
larization and brawls between the presidency and a R ­ epublican-dominated
Congress, creating the impression that there might be a significant dif-
ference in how the two main political U.S. parties handle this issue. This
seemed to be the case indeed when Republican President Bush came into
office with a strong disdain for what he derided as missionary follies and
naive nation-building experiments and vowed to be ABC – Anything But
Clinton. Within a few years, however, his presidency became best known for
its so-called ‘Freedom Agenda’ and attempts to spread democracy around
the world, by force if necessary. This policy came to be largely viewed as a
major failure, has afforded a massive credibility loss, is considered partly
responsible for the global ‘backlash’ against democracy and democracy pro-
motion, and has tainted this policy to the extent that U.S. allies have spent
much effort in trying to disassociate themselves from the U.S. (Carothers
2013: 196). As one observer noted toward the end of the Bush term in office,
‘[i]t may be that the very word democracy has become so tainted that we will
have to put it away until the toxins have leached out’ (Traub 2008: 9).
Democratic President Obama, assuming office with the all-out promise of
change, distanced himself notably from his predecessor. He initially all but
erased the word democracy from his administration’s foreign policy language
4 Introduction
portfolio, receiving cheers and jeers from observers who were united in their
expectation of major policy changes. Where the Obama administration3
stood on democracy promotion and, subsequently, whether its approach
represented continuity or change with regard to preceding administrations
became a hotly debated issue in policy and journalistic circles. Expectations
for change were high on the part of both proponents and opponents of an al-
leged new policy. And Obama did indeed heed the call of some to at least sig-
nificantly tone down the rampant rhetoric and thereby distance himself and
his policies from the Bush administration ­(Carothers 2007; Goldsmith 2008),
prompting others to be squarely disappointed by what they interpreted as
the ‘abandonment of democracy’ (Muravchik 2009). However, in its attempt
to distance itself from its predecessor and be ABB – Anything But Bush –
the administration in the end failed to convince the broader scholarly com-
munity that actual changes were indeed taking place.4 Continuity mostly
prevailed.
This is all the more puzzling since public opinion, which is bound to
shape the way that policy is made (Cox et al. 2000: 12) and might thus bol-
ster the policy against all odds, does not at all constitute a pillar of support
for democracy promotion. While there is agreement that, in very general
terms, the ‘population needs to be assured that the goal is democracy if it
is to support many overseas operations’ (Lieven 2008: xii), the general pub-
lic has never considered democracy promotion an important foreign policy
goal,5 and support further declined during the Bush presidency (Carothers
2013: 196).
A turned tide and strong headwinds in the international arena, the per-
ception of general, sometimes even blatant policy failure, different incoming
governments expressing disdain and pledging change, and a non supportive
or at least indifferent public – common sense would lead one to expect U.S.
democracy promotion policy to have fallen into pieces years ago. Rationalist
and materialist theories would agree as they argue that recent U.S. democ-
racy promotion policy has too often been detrimental to what is considered
to be ‘real’ U.S. interests. This perspective also usually interprets democracy
promotion to merely provide a label for the pursuit of ‘real’ interests (Kurki
2013: 220). From this angle, a policy that obviously does not work and that
repeatedly produces conflicts of interests and tends to backfire is certainly
one to be overhauled, and it would accordingly be entirely plausible for the
U.S., with its democracy promotion efforts in visible crisis, to question its
policy approach and possibly revise or even abandon it completely. Even
when broadening the theoretical angle to include constructivist approaches,
failure appears to be a major if not the most relevant source of change. In the
words of one author: ‘The standard proposition is that success contributes
to policy continuity whereas failure leads to change’ (Legro 2000: 425).
One would, in light of this strong impetus for change from different po-
tential directions, expect at least some kind of notable policy response and
possibly even major changes and adjustments. It is thus puzzling that U.S.
 Introduction 5
democracy promotion policy is arguably characterized by strong currents
of continuity and stability and that scholars are mostly unable to detect sig-
nificant changes (a proposition probed extensively in Chapter 1). Or, to put
it the other way around, these developments are all detrimental to a pol-
icy’s stability contrary to, for example, a stable and reliable international
environment, a somewhat successful policy implementation, strong public
support, or the continuous reign of a specific party in office. So, where
could the policy’s staying power come from? The factors discussed earlier
have all been subjected to great variation during the past two decades. In
search for reasons pointing to stability, one should instead turn toward
­particularly change-resistant areas with the power to stand tall even in the
face of strong adversity.

Identity and culture as an inhibitor to change

As noted, at first glance, reasons for change are manifold and ubiquitous.
In attempting to understand why U.S. democracy promotion policy has not
more visibly responded to these pressures, this study has set its focus on
the investigation of a hitherto largely unexplored angle: analyzing the basic
premises that inform U.S. democracy promotion policy. There are several
indications as to the plausibility and productivity of choosing this approach
and I discuss these in the following.
First, theories that are concerned with national identity and political
culture, of which the basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion that I
am interested in constitute one part, argue that identity-related and cul-
tural factors tend to promote continuity.6 Under the assumption that these
factors are relatively stable and that they shape, enable, and constrain the
designation of policy, it is plausible to expect that indeed a general stability
with regard to a policy’s basic premises should give endurance to this policy
and make it more resistant to challenges. An unchanging policy makers’
worldview of democracy promotion over the decades could then at least
contribute to but maybe also account for the continuity in U.S. democracy
promotion. Or, to put it differently, if the very foundations of a policy are
not touched and remain stable, it is plausible that they shape and structure
the policies that flow from them even in light of adversity. This thinking also
embraces the notion that the assumptions policy makers hold tend to be
fairly robust and are meaningful in the political process. Duffield (1999: 772)
is convinced that ‘culture promises to be particularly useful for explaining
cases of puzzling or unexpected constancy in foreign and security policy’.
Second, this angle is worth exploring because, despite its often assumed
relevance, we simply do not know much about what constitutes the more
specific cultural backdrop of democracy promotion that operates in policy
makers’ minds. Much has been written about U.S. foreign policy identity and
political culture and many studies have traced their historical genesis, but
the historically and culturally imprinted thinking in the area of democracy
6 Introduction
promotion is largely unexplored, although the policy is accepted as constitut-
ing a significant element of national identity in itself. In the area of democracy
promotion research, most studies have focused on questions of efficiency and
sustainability and have traced and discussed on the ground policy changes in
light of rising challenges, but only very little is known about the shape of the
deep-seated premises driving democracy promotion.7 Before conducting this
study, it was thus only a not yet systematically analyzed proposition that the
democracy promotion worldview of U.S. policy makers is a fairly stable one
and has, moreover, something to do with the overall stability and continuity
in the realm of U.S. democracy promotion policy.
Third, and directly following from the previous argument, a small number
of scholars has recently called for more scholarly and critical engagement
with democracy promotion’s premises. The backlash as well as increasing
local resistance has led scholars to question the ‘premises’ (Goldsmith 2008)
and ‘ideological origins’ (Desch 2008; cf. Guilhot 2005) informing democ-
racy promotion and instead emphasize their ‘conceptual contestability’
(Kurki 2010) as well as their potential to produce ‘justice conflicts’ (Poppe
and Wolff 2013a). Scholarship engaging with the ideational foundations and
conceptual politics of democracy promotion, however, is still in its early
stages. Moreover, scholars have sometimes pointed out that the premises
that U.S. (and other) democracy promoters hold and use to design policy ac-
cordingly are problematic and regularly lead to conflict (Kurki 2013; Poppe
and Wolff 2013a). On a related note, scholars and practitioners have also
called for a discussion about the norms that guide international democracy
promotion and have demanded a clarification of what democracy promo-
tion can and should be allowed to do (Carothers 2010a: 70–71). My study,
then, contributes to the small but growing scholarship on U.S. democracy
promotion’s ideational foundations not only as a still little explored and
­neglected part of foreign policy, but also as a potentially c­ onflict-inducing
factor that should be reflected upon more thoroughly.
Fourth, when wondering about the staying power of a policy under pres-
sure, there is of course some plausibility in turning to what the policy mak-
ers responsible for this policy have to say about it and how they explain and
justify its continuing relevance – which is part of my approach to ­assessing
the basic premises. Democracy promotion scholarship emphasizes that the
end of the Cold War had given rise to the appealing notion that, from the
perspective of U.S. policy makers, democracy promotion had bridged
the gap between idealist and realist foreign policy as it blended together
the promotion of ‘hard’ U.S. national interests with ‘soft’ value promotion.
If that is, however, true and if policy makers really do promote democracy
promotion as (being in) the national interest, then this presents an interest-
ing contradiction with the earlier discussed diagnosis of democracy pro-
motion’s policy failure, rising challenges and pressure, all running counter
to (rationalist defined) U.S. interests. Going back to the cultural argu-
ment, however, if policy makers perceive democracy promotion as a central
 Introduction 7
interest or at least interest-enhancing and if this perception is relatively
stable, this could provide a potential explanation for the lack of change.8
In my assessment of the different premises of U.S. democracy promotion, I
pay special attention to what this diagnosis of the supposed unity between
values and interests entails.
The first major empirical part of this project is thus an in-depth probing
into the basic premises that inform U.S. democracy promotion. I ask what, in
fact, these basic assumptions are, what nuances they show, and how they, in
the minds of policy makers, relate to each other. What is, in effect, the thought
framework that structures, enables, and shapes U.S. democracy promotion pol-
icy, and how has it manifested itself in rhetoric and developed over time? Has it
changed or remained stable, thus providing a possible explanation for democ-
racy promotion’s enduring relevance? It was this project’s explicit assumption
that a systematic analysis would indeed most likely affirm relative stability and
continuity in the realm of those premises that underlie U.S. democracy pro-
motion policy. I do, however, pay close attention to indications of change and
counterarguments and assess their relevance and meaning. On a general note,
it should be acknowledged that, for the purpose of this study, it is not relevant
whether policy makers personally believe in the statements they make and thus
in the democracy promotion worldview they embrace publically (see Chapter 2).
It is also important to note that the purpose of this study is not to es-
tablish or prove the thesis that the basic premises of U.S. democracy pro-
motion, or U.S. political culture, or national identity are solely responsible
for the policy that is eventually devised. Neither do I assume that cultural
dispositions do automatically lead to the relative stability and continuity
of U.S. democracy promotion. While I have, for the purpose of this study,
chosen to focus on this particular potential explanation9 for the continuous
stability of U.S. democracy promotion – the relevance of ideas, identity, and
culture in the form of the basic premises – I do not embrace the concept
of monocausality and am aware of the difficulties that arise, ‘particularly
when trying to understand processes of interpretation and constructing re-
ality’ (Ruggie 1997: 124). In principle, the linkage between ideas and policy
is extremely difficult to establish and trace; but even if one does so suc-
cessfully, alternative explanations may be of (more) relevance, too (Sil and
Katzenstein 2010). Adhering to this eclectic perspective while only probing
one potential factor, I thus do not claim to be establishing causality. What
I can and do show, however, is that it is entirely plausible and in light of
the evidence even very likely that the stability of the way the U.S. foreign
policy elite thinks about democracy promotion has a lot to do with the fact
that very little is changing in other aspects of the policy. And in light of the
lack of other factors that in and of themselves plausibly explain this curious
stability of U.S. democracy promotion policy, I am, for now, content with
diligently documenting the plausibility and relevance of the ‘cultural angle’,
but will also address other factors that are likely or potential contributors to
continuity in the conclusion of this study.
8 Introduction
U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt as the litmus test
A systematic and in-depth analysis of the basic premises of U.S. democracy
promotion policy is a worthwhile exercise in itself. I do, however, also pur-
sue the question of what happens when these assumptions meet a challeng-
ing environment. While it might be easy to champion a coherent and stable
thought structure under relatively undefined parameters and with regard to
a general (global) context, how does this worldview manifest and reproduce
itself when confronted with challenges, resistance, and failure in a specific
case? How, on the ground, so to speak, are premises (and the expectations
they generate) justified, adapted, and how are other maybe more immediate
interests taken into consideration? How are value and interest trade-offs and
other tensions presented and dealt with? Not least, how are critical questions
handled or avoided? Is the validity of some premises more strongly chal-
lenged than others? It is also possible that, though it would very much put
the explanatory power of the cultural constructivist project into question in
general, the analysis yields a big translation gap between the ‘global’ U.S.
democracy promotion assumptions on the one hand and the assumptions’
operational and visible in a specific, challenging case on the other. Overall,
I assume ‘talk’ to be a very relevant part of policy(making) in itself and do
not at all subscribe to the dismissive phrase of ‘cheap talk’. But I also con-
sider it important to examine the (developing) interaction between political
rhetoric – which is the vehicle for the expression of basic premises – and the
more mundane parts of political practice (see Chapter 2).
Moving away from the more abstract policy level and deepening the anal-
ysis to include a case of actual political practice also allows extending the
analytical scope beyond the basic premises. While these are still the principal
focus of interest in this part of the study, their role and fate is considered in
light of all relevant circumstances – the (changing) local conditions within
the democracy promotion-receiving country, (other) interests at play in the
relationship between the U.S. and the country it seeks to help democratize,
and also U.S. domestic factors that influence democracy promotion such as
foreign budget disputes or conflicts between different parts of the govern-
ment as well as a greater variety of U.S. actors working on behalf of democra-
tization. In this part of the analysis, a much greater variety of factors that can
influence policy are now considered. In doing so, I also follow Wolff’s con-
sideration (2014: 279) with regard to democracy promotion scholarship that:

[t]heoretically and empirically, additional work is needed to clarify the

interaction of interests and norms, constellations of actors on the donor
side as well as contextual factors on the recipient side and in the inter-
national realm in the process of policy formation and implementation.

Egypt is a most suitable case for assessing how the democracy promotion
worldview fares under pressure. In light of the manifold challenges for and
 Introduction 9
conflicts over U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt over the past two decades,
it would in fact be surprising to find the basic premises assert and manifest
themselves relatively intact. For the U.S., Egypt has been and remains an
important (authoritarian) ally in the Arab world, where the U.S. has and
continues to have significant ‘hard’ interests and considers the stakes to be
high. All three presidencies under analysis consider Egypt a central case for
democracy promotion; (claim to) have actively worked for Egypt’s democ-
ratization; and a host of (U.S.) democracy promotion organizations have
set up shop there. Congress and the presidency have, furthermore, often
heatedly debated aid policy toward Egypt, and occasionally rifts between
the State Department and the White House have become visible. Although
there have been serious attempts at democracy promotion in Egypt, they
have been timid and/or were withdrawn after some time. At first glance,
thus, Egypt also appears to be a challenging chase for the U.S. democ-
racy promotion worldview because, despite the steady claim to pursuing
democracy promotion, the policy implemented in the bilateral relationship
has only very rarely been genuinely driven by democracy concerns and can
barely lay claim to having been successful.
Internal developments and conditions in Egypt, on the other hand, under-
line the challenging situation for U.S. democracy promotion further. Egypt
is one of those countries in which the widely debated backlash against de-
mocracy (promotion) became palpable, but also where an authoritarian re-
gime was toppled in the course of the ‘Arab Spring’ and free elections were
held, then to be followed by a coup d’état and what some have termed an
‘Arab Winter’. There are thus a number of ‘democracy-related’ instances for
studying the U.S. response. This response should be particularly interest-
ing as the U.S. seeks to chart a policy course that best possible aligns with
democracy promotion’s premises, but also takes into account other inter-
ests, and moreover needs to be responsive to ‘recipient-specific conditions
that define the normatively appropriate and pragmatically possible’ (Wolff
2014a: 279).
Overall, while I am with regard to Egypt interested in assessing the rele-
vance, manifestation, and interplay of the different constituent elements of
U.S. democracy promotion policy and thus broaden the horizon of the anal-
ysis, my particular concern lies with the role and fate of the basic premises.
U.S. democracy promotion policy toward Egypt represents a particularly
challenging case for the coherence and stability of the democracy promo-
tion worldview – can it manifest and reproduce itself under these conditions
or is it notably adapted or even discarded?

The U.S. foreign policy elite as the key actor

For both major empirical parts of this study – the assessment of the general
democracy promotion worldview as well as for the analysis of its fate in the
case of U.S. policy in Egypt – I am mainly interested in the ‘high-policy
10 Introduction
level’ and thus almost solely turn to the top tier of the U.S. executive foreign
policy elite. For the general analysis, this means the president as well as the
secretaries of state. For the case study, this includes an occasional statement
by a press secretary or spokesperson. The rationale is as follows: compared
to Congress, another important but less relevant player, it is the adminis-
tration that holds the much greater part of responsibility in foreign affairs.
For the U.S. but also worldwide, the U.S. president and the secretaries of
state are, so to speak, the most visible and most widely listened to democ-
racy promoters. They are the final arbiters of decisions regarding democ-
racy promotion policy and are the highest representatives of their country’s
policy decisions. What they say and argue reflects the rationales for policy
decisions and approaches and is also representative of U.S. political culture
and thinking. Public speeches and other texts go through several levels of
approval before they reach the presidents’ or the secretaries’ desk, and are
thus the result of a process that is institutionally strongly embedded.
Moreover, high-profile actors such as the top-tier foreign policy elite ‘are
often instrumental in the propagation of policy ideas and rhetorical frames’
(Béland 2009: 708), and it is plausible to expect trickle-down effects, thus
bolstering the assumption of their representativeness for the larger policy
community.10 Elite representations, for example, through official statements
and reports, ‘generally provide the dominant interpretation of US identity
and interests’ (Rowley and Weldes 2012: 186), and are thus the locus to turn
to for assessing the basic premises of U.S. democracy promotion. Moreover,
if I find the executive’s basic assumptions about democracy promotion to be
indeed salient and fairly consistent over time, even in the context of chang-
ing governments, it is reasonable to assume that this worldview extends to
members of the broader foreign policy elite and the democracy promotion
community. It might then also likely extend to Congress and thus constitute
an operational policy impetus in the legislative as well.11
The systematic and thorough analysis of the foreign policy elite’s de-
mocracy promotion worldview is also complemented by what I have per-
sonally (and much less systematically) learned in and from the democracy
promotion community in the U.S. Kurki (2013: 16) suggests to link data
analysis with data garnered from interviews, whose purpose it is to find
out if premises found in texts correspond to what people working in the
field actually think and say. Pursuing this particular angle, I spent some
time as a visiting researcher in Washington, DC in the second half of 2011.
Beyond conducting exploratory interviews with either people engaged in
democracy promotion or at the nexus between practice and research, I also
attended topic-related events and had a lot of informal meetings and con-
versations. While I do not claim my findings to be representative in a strict
sense, I consider the insights thus gained as a valuable and interesting ad-
dendum to the analysis. This approach extended the analysis in two ways.
On the one hand, conducting and evaluating semi-structured interviews
added a methodological dimension to this study otherwise heavily relying
 Introduction 11
on qualitative-quantitative content analysis as well as on a close reading of
secondary literature. On the other hand, this approach allowed me to also
tentatively include the ‘other’ side of democracy promotion actors – not the
high-level, highly visible representatives of the executive but those who are
engaged in their daily work with the designing and implementation of de-
mocracy promotion on the ground (see Chapter 4).

Key contributions and chapter outline

In short, what are the key contributions that this book has to offer? On the
one hand, it provides an in-depth inquiry into what the often stated diag-
nosis of continuity in U.S. democracy promotion since the ending of the
Cold War actually entails in terms of strategy and operational approach. To
this comparative analysis of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama presidencies, I
then add my analysis of official rhetoric, another element characterized by
an elementary continuity. Overall, my engagement with the basic premises
offers one potential explanation for the curious stability of a policy that
has been under fire from many directions for a sustained period of time.
On the other hand, this study is, to my knowledge, the first attempt at sys-
tematically assessing what scholars have in general and often unquestion-
ingly considered to be a given, namely that there is a meaningful connection
between U.S. identity as a champion of democracy and its actual foreign
policy. Tracing this connection by operationalizing the cultural dimension
through the identification and observation of basic premises over time is an
innovative approach to making the cultural variable accessible. This is not
merely an academic exercise of methodically demonstrating something we
already know. I can indeed show that a premise that scholars widely assume
to be important plays almost no role in official rhetoric. In so proceeding,
moreover, I am not only able to evaluate the potential for identity-related
reasons for the relative stability of democracy promotion, but also heed the
call of several scholars to finally pay more attention to these premises, not
least because they are sometimes considered to be (potentially) problematic,
conflict-inducing, and even responsible for the backlash against democracy
(promotion) that we have seen since the early 2000s.
Several important findings and implications emanate from this study.
Shedding substantial light on a case where the domestic side of foreign pol-
icy is a crucial element of policymaking, the book shows how the much fa-
bled ‘culture matters’ proposition actually plays out in the foreign policy of
one of the most relevant actors on the world stage. The basic premises of de-
mocracy promotion function as a nonmaterial structure in Giddens’ sense,
enabling and constraining policymaking, and delineating what is norma-
tively appropriate behavior. Theoretical assumptions that emphasize cul-
tural and identity-related factors’ relevance predominantly in times of great
uncertainty are shown to be not convincing. This points to the relevance of
my argument for broader foreign policy analysis. This study also highlights
12 Introduction
the complex interplay of norms and interests in foreign policy making and
illuminates democracy promotion’s standing as a foreign policy ‘outlier’ due
to its bipartisan and consensus-generating effect – a consensus currently put
into question to a hitherto unknown extent (Epilogue).
Democracy promotion itself might no longer be a key focus of academic
research as it was in the early 2000s, but debating (and explaining) the sup-
posed decline or even ‘death’ of democracy promotion has high currency
at the moment. This book offers one reading of why democracy promotion
against all odds, including previous announcements of its abandonment
in the U.S., has an intense staying power. But I also show how the likely
responsible cultural dimension is the same one that has great potential to
generate opposition in the implementation process and thus create its own
backlash in the first place – a charge repeatedly leveled at the Bush admin-
istration. In any case, the in-depth illumination of how ‘culture matters’
in and to foreign policy is a relatively rare contribution to a research field
still dominated by research treating culture and identity mostly as ‘slippery’
auxiliary conditions.
The first chapter consists of two parts; the first discusses and defines key
concepts (such as democracy and democracy promotion) and critically as-
sesses the scholarly debate on democracy promotion with a view to U.S.
democracy promotion in general as well as with a particular view to the
increasingly sobering state of affairs in light of the backlash and the policy’s
problems. The chapter’s second more extensive part engages with the schol-
arly diagnosis of continuity and stability in U.S. democracy promotion and
demonstrates the extent to which this policy indeed can be considered stable
and enduring. The chapter offers an assessment of the strategic and oper-
ational side of U.S. democracy promotion under the Clinton, Bush junior,
and Obama presidencies in the form of a diachronic narrative. This means I
examine the place of democracy (promotion) in post-Cold War U.S. foreign
policy strategy as well as where financial assistance is going, how the bu-
reaucracy is (re-)structured, and whether or not the portfolio of democracy
promotion measures extends to military intervention or not. While mostly
engaging with the state of the art literature, the chapter is complemented by
an original analysis of what the respective National Security Strategies have
to say about democracy promotion.
The second chapter first explores the theoretical basis for the idea that a
deeply entrenched ‘worldview’ informing a policy can be a potential rea-
son for continuity despite the pressure for change. Following constructivist
cues, I lay out theoretical considerations with regard to national identity
and political culture, in order to be able to then position the basic premises
within this framework and speculate about the relevance and implications
of these concepts. I then focus on the question of the relationship between
interests and values, explain how and why language matters in political
practice, and finally address the reasons and mechanisms that provide the
starting point for the assumption that culture tends to promote stability.
 Introduction 13
Second, and briefly, this chapter discusses the methodological approach to
how I am tracing stability/change in the ideas that underlie the promotion
of democracy in the U.S. A more extensive engagement with methodological
procedure is provided in an online appendix.12
The third chapter puts democracy promotion’s role and relevance in the
context of U.S. history and identity formation, and then scans the literature
for clues and expectations with regard to what the U.S. basic premises of de-
mocracy promotion look like. On the basis of an extensive literature review,
I carve out a broad set of assumptions by screening and categorizing often
debated ideas and issues. These premises – five in total – form quite a har-
monious worldview that, as I show, is theoretically and empirically severely
challenged. According to the literature, the U.S. democracy promotion
worldview assumes that democracy is a universal(ly aspired) value; that ex-
ternal actors can and should support democratization; that democratization
is a struggle between identifiable ‘good’ and ‘bad’; that democratization re-
quires no preconditions and is a relatively smooth process; and that all good
things go together. These alleged premises as well as their challengers provide
the basis for the operationalization of a content analytical category scheme.
The fourth chapter presents the results of an extensive content analysis of
official U.S. foreign policy texts in order to assess the premises’ actual man-
ifestation in public discourse, gauge their development and their variability
for the time period under analysis, and speculate about their significance.
Here, I present my original data as I lay out the qualitative and quantitative
results of the analysis for all postulated basic premises and for all presi-
dencies. Notably, not all the premises identified in the literature, as I show,
‘survive’ the empirical analysis. I lay out important general observations as
well as peculiarities of each presidency, and then turn to interpreting and
discussing my findings. Finally, this chapter presents the results of a round
of semi-structured interviews with scholar-practitioners of U.S. democracy
promotion in late 2011.
Then, I turn toward tracing the fate and manifestation of the basic prem-
ises in a country in which U.S. democracy promotion has been challenged
quite substantially over the past years in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5, after
giving a brief overview of the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and
Egypt, discusses at length U.S. democracy promotion policy in Egypt under
the Clinton and Bush presidencies; Chapter 6 does so for the Obama presi-
dency. The analysis in these chapters is based on a content analysis of rele-
vant statements by White House and State Department officials as well as
on the extant literature of U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt. The goal is
an assessment of the manifestation or negation of the basic premises in this
specific case against the background of all relevant policy factors, includ-
ing political developments in Egypt, (other) U.S. interests in the region, and
domestic and bureaucratic challenges within the U.S. The end of Chapter 6
summarizes how, despite severe challenges to their validity, a robust core of
three basic premises is quite steadily reproduced.
14 Introduction
This study’s concluding chapter briefly reiterates the course of this study
as well as major results, considers the democracy promotion worldview in
light of the findings in the ‘global’ as well as in the case-specific analysis,
and muses on its robust core as well as its adaptability. I then return to the
theoretical expectations outlined in Chapter 2 and reevaluate my findings
against this background, reflecting on factors that enable the democracy
promotion worldview to assert itself as well as on change-inhibiting dynam-
ics. Particularly, psychological mechanisms that, mainly on the individual
level, tend to work toward the stabilization of a particular worldview are
identified as key. I also relate my findings to other democracy promotion
and foreign policy research and ponder on how the case study on democracy
promotion in Egypt relates to and fits in with existing research. In the end,
I address implications and venues for further study that, in light of my find-
ings, seem worthwhile and wonder whether any substantial change of U.S.
democracy promotion policy is likely to come about any time soon and, if
so, where it could come from.
In an additional chapter at the very end of this book, I turn to the most
recent presidency of Donald Trump, who was elected after the original re-
search for this study was concluded. The arrival of the Trump presidency
and what it means to the project of democracy promotion as well as to
the findings in this book needs to be considered. This epilogue discusses
whether or not Trump and his foreign policy team, up to now, have actually
followed through on the announced abandonment of the policy, what ob-
stacles stand in their way, and what we should expect in the future. It argues
that, while internal developments are important, it is recent global develop-
ments that currently provide the most important pointers for the future of
U.S. democracy promotion.

Notes
1 See, for example, Bouchet (2013b); Brands (2018: 53); Carothers (2000, 2007,
2012); Hassan (2013); Smith (2007, 2013).
2 For example, Carothers (2006); Carothers and Brechenmacher (2014); NED
(2006).
3 On a technical note, I use the terms ‘administration’ and ‘presidency’ interchangea-
bly. I am aware that the presidencies under analysis all consist of two a­ dministrations,
but have decided to overlook that detail for purposes of convenience and ­readability.
If I consider it important to distinguish between the first and the second administra-
tion of a presidency, this will become clear in the text.
4 Carothers (2013); Mead (2011); Smith (2013).
5 CCFR/KN/PIPA (2005); Epstein et al. (2007: 2–3); Holsti (2000: 177).
6 See, for example, Campbell (1992); Duffield (1999); Welch (2005).
7 For first steps into that direction, see Bridoux and Kurki (2014); Hobson and
Kurki (2012a, 2012b); Poppe et al. (2014); Poppe and Wolff (2013a, 2017); Smith
(2007).
8 As Bridoux and Kurki (2014: 36) point out in the context of discussing democracy
promotion, ‘even most liberal and realist thinkers today would perceive values
and interests as mutually supportive, rather than as clashing sets of concerns’.
 Introduction 15
9 When using the words ‘explanation’ or ‘explain’, this is not intended to signify an
adherence to the sometimes stark differentiation into ‘understanding’ and ‘ex-
plaining’ in the discipline’s epistemological and ontological debates. Contrary
to research strongly informed by positivist thinking, I do not follow this sepa-
ration; when I use the term ‘explanation’, this connotes ‘an attempt to trace how
certain outcomes have become possible’ (Schörnig et al. 2013: 24).
10 A study of U.S. and German democracy promotion has found that ‘the strate-
gies of the parastatal foundations and institutes were generally not at odds with
the overall pattern of the respective donor’s democracy promotion, but instead
fitted relatively well into the picture’ (Wolff 2014a: 274).
11 Continuity could then, in line with Peceny’s argument (1995), be fostered if,
whenever one of the central bodies of foreign policy making is weak on democ-
racy promotion, the other steps up and increases pressure.
12 https://www.hsf k.de/fileadmin/HSFK/hsf k_downloads/OnlineAppendix­
PoppeRoutledge_USDemocracyPromotionAfterTheColdWar.pdf.
1 U.S. democracy promotion
Determinants, debates, and
the diagnosis of continuity in
the post-Cold War era1

This chapter has two purposes. Its first part is concerned with positioning
my study among the extant concepts of democracy and democracy promo-
tion as well as the general scholarly literature on U.S. democracy promotion
and show where I hope to be able to contribute. Apart from illuminating
the increasingly difficult international context for democracy promotion,
I briefly highlight the parts of the scholarly debate that critically assess de-
mocracy promotion. The chapter’s second and more extensive part is con-
cerned with gauging the shape and extent of the continuity thesis in the
strategic-operational level of U.S. democracy promotion. In the form of a
diachronic narrative, I take a close look at what the literature has to say with
regard to the development of democracy promotion policy under Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. For this part, I have also relied on my own analysis of
the National Security Strategies (NSSs) as the central strategic document of
the respective presidencies.

Concepts of democracy and democracy promotion

Defining ‘democracy’ as well as what is meant by its ‘promotion’ is an impos-
sible task and will necessarily remain unsatisfactory. Not only are there ‘al-
most as many theoretical definitions of democracy as there are scholars who
study democratic politics’ (Lipset and Lakin 2004: 19), the multiple actors
involved on the donor and the recipient side also have their own take on what
democracy promotion is or should be about. A definition given here can thus
only offer an incomplete approximation to a much contested (and changing)
concept. It should also be emphasized that this study would not benefit from
a narrow definition of democracy promotion, as the central purpose of the
empirical parts is to assess premises and assumptions that policy makers
hold and not to bring one’s own preconceptions into the analysis. In the fol-
lowing, then, I offer a few considerations that I deem relevant for thinking
about the phenomenon, concept, and policy of democracy promotion.
In light of the widely spread tendency among democracy promotion
scholars to broadly define democracy as ‘electoral’ and ‘liberal’ and then
quickly move on without further ado, Hobson and Kurki (2012a: 2) have
 Determinants, debates, and continuity 17
drawn our attention to democracy being an essentially ‘contested idea’.
Three conceptual debates about democracy, they argue, need to be con-
sidered when thinking about democracy promotion: different understand-
ings of the ‘nature, scope and purpose of democracy’, differences in the way
in which democracy can be defined – ranging from vague to precise – and
differing conceptions of democracy: either or simultaneously as an open-
ended process, an ideal, or a set of institutions (Hobson and Kurki 2012a:
6–10). They also point out as problematic that every regime claims to be
democratic these days (Hobson and Kurki 2012b: 220). Similarly, Fierlbeck
(2008: 3, xiii) demurs that democracy has become ‘both academically and
politically, all things to all people’ and that too many ‘illiberal authoritarian
practices’ have been allowed to pass under the label ‘democratic’. She notes
that democracy

represents a philosophical ideal, a political strategy, and an instrument

of economic well-being. It is expected to promote popular participa-
tion, stabilize weak regimes, give citizens a sense of meaning, meet in-
dividuals’ material needs, empower women, add vibrancy to society,
encourage tolerance, strengthen a sense of national solidarity, and lead
to a regime of global peace.
(Fierlbeck 2008: 3)

The diversity of meanings of ‘democracy’ in democracy promotion has re-

cently been demonstrated by a study that has mapped nine distinct models
of democracy along with their differing value priorities and institutional
commitments (Kurki 2013).2 Although a few other models of democracy are
playing a role here and there, the U.S. discourse is strongly dominated by
liberal conceptions of democracy as well as the significance of a free market
economy, emphasis on the political and economic freedom of individuals,
and the rule of law and property rights as well as civil society and a consti-
tution as defenders of (negative) rights against the state.3 This conception
often stands in contrast to the idea of democracy that many countries on
the recipient side hold (Kurki 2013), thus pointing toward one major cause
of friction in democracy promotion.
For the purposes of this study, a fairly broad definition is employed: de-
mocracy promotion comprises an ‘array of measures aimed at establishing,
strengthening, or defending democracy in a given country’ (Azpuru et al.
2008: 151). The range of activities falling under this label is wide, involv-
ing political acts as diverse as diplomatic pressure and tying foreign aid to
certain democratization-related conditions as well as the use of sanctions
or military force. The rhetorical act of a political representative criticizing
the lack of democratic development in an authoritarian country stands at
one end of the spectrum and is one frequently made use of. A military in-
vasion in the name of defending or building a democratic regime or even
toppling a nondemocratic one stands at the other and is seldom employed.
18 Determinants, debates, and continuity
Carothers draws our attention to another useful distinction with regard to
democracy promotion: its elements of ‘high’ and ‘low’ policy (Carothers
2009a). The former refers to the highly visible activities by senior officials
with regard to other governments, whereas the latter resides in the daily
and much less visible work of embassies and officers operating within a re-
cipient country. One specific form of democracy promotion is democracy
assistance, which refers to ‘funds or direct assistance to governments, in-
stitutions, or civil society actors’ (Azpuru et al. 2008: 151) working toward
establishing and strengthening democracy. Henceforth, this is what is meant
when I speak of democracy assistance, while, when talking about democ-
racy promotion, I will be speaking about the policy in general.
For the larger part of my research, I am, of course, interested in the ‘high
policy’ (representations) of democracy promotion as a point of entry for
accessing the basic premises operational in political culture and thus in the
minds of policy makers. In later analysis, specifically with regard to the case
of U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt, the scope is broadened to other
policy areas as well. Overall, I am guided by what policy makers themselves
consider to be democracy promotion activities, as it would be problematic,
I argue, to limit the analysis strictly according to a particular definition.

From democratic euphoria to digesting

the authoritarian backlash
When scholars discuss contemporary democracy promotion, they often
make out the first serious attempts under the Carter or Reagan administra-
tions.4 Whereas Carter was deeply concerned with the promotion of h ­ uman
rights, making it a central element in foreign policy by establishing the
Bureau for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the State Depart-
ment, Reagan focused explicitly on the promotion of democracy and called
upon the free world to embark on a ‘crusade for freedom’ (Reagan 1982).
Toward this purpose, the National Endowment for Democracy was estab-
lished under his administration in 1983. Democracy promotion was not
endowed with a similarly high profile as a foreign policy goal during the
presidency of Reagan’s successor. While George H. W. Bush’s vision of a
‘new world order’ certainly echoes the democracy impetus, he did not have
enough time – and possibly neither the will – to develop a comprehensive de-
mocracy promotion agenda. The first post-Cold War president to do so was
President Bill Clinton, and his administrations as well as George W. Bush’s
and Barack Obama’s are at the empirical center of this study.
With the ending of the Cold War, presumably won by the persuasive power
of liberal values, and a new global wave of democratization in its wake,
democracy promotion received an upgrade on the foreign policy agenda.
Arrived had a ‘liberal momentum’ (Geis et al. 2007: 72), heralding a sig-
nificantly more feasible and promising implementation of democratization
worldwide and potentially leading to ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama 1989).
 Determinants, debates, and continuity 19
Voices debating a ‘right to democracy’ emerged (Franck 1992) and ‘liberal
market democracy became the consensus end point being worked towards’
(Hobson and Kurki 2012a: 1). The widespread optimism even generated the
notion that democracy henceforth was the ‘normal’ regime type around the
world and that rejecting it equaled rejecting modernity in general (Nodia
2010: 102).5 At the beginning of the 21st century, Schraeder (2002: 1) iden-
tified ‘the emergence of an international norm that considers democracy
promotion to be an accepted and necessary component of international be-
havior’ and found the proponents of active democracy promotion to ‘clearly
have the edge in the normative debate’ (Schraeder 2003: 25). In a similar
vein, Risse (2009: 263) concluded: ‘At the beginning of the twenty-first
­c entury, democracy promotion and assistance have become part of a global
cultural script’.
From the U.S. perspective, the often glaring tensions between pursuing
interest- and value-based policies suddenly seemed to be a problem of the
past or, in Carothers’ words, ‘[t]he end of the cold war gave rise to the ap-
pealing notion that the traditional tension in US foreign policy between real-
politik security interests and Wilsonian moral interests was over’ (Carothers
1999: 4–5, his emphasis). Many authors emphatically argued that the divide
between idealism and realism had finally been crossed by the foreign policy
concept of democracy promotion (Carothers 2000, Holsti 2000) and that
the latter’s security logic was now to be fully appreciated (Nau 2000: 127).
Spreading democracy around the world, now that it appeared more feasible
than under the restrictions of the Cold War’s bipolar confrontation, seemed
after all to offer a multitude of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ benefits: it satisfied the as-
sumed societal demands for an idealistic policy in line with the American
self-image while at the same time pacifying the world and thereby enhancing
U.S. security and economic opportunities. In this vein, Smith is convinced
that Wilsonianism and realism have been made compatible through de-
mocracy promotion and that ‘the argument that nothing serves American
national security like the expansion of democracy worldwide can be made
historically, empirically, and logically’ (Smith 1994: 332).
The ‘democracy euphoria’ was kindled to a large extent by academia’s
discussion of democratic peace theory. The democratic peace thesis, as it
was received and appropriated by policy makers, broadened the argumen-
tative basis for democracy promotion to the point where this policy was
considered to be a foreign policy panacea.6 It holds that democracies do
not fight each other.7 Although this phenomenon has not been satisfacto-
rily explained, most policy makers absorbed the following logic: the fact
that democracies do not fight each other leads to – in proportion to the
number of states the democratic community calls its own – greater stabil-
ity in the international system, and thus to global peace and prosperity.
Democracy promotion, consequently, fosters not only ‘global well-being’,
but also bolsters the national security interests and economic benefits of
one’s own country. During the Clinton presidency, ‘possibly no other idea
20 Determinants, debates, and continuity
emanating from the academic community exercised as much influence as
this one [democratic peace] on the White House’ (Cox 2000: 226). For the
Bush government, Ish-Shalom (2006: 566) convincingly demonstrates ‘how
American neoconservatives use the democratic-peace theories to gain intel-
lectual respectability and political acceptability of their political agenda of
regime change in the Middle East’. More pronounced than ever before, the
end of the Cold War and the emergence of democratic peace theory allowed
for the conceivably smooth merging of normative impulses and rationalist
reasoning within the promotion of democracy.8
From today’s perspective, the optimism is long gone and, in light of a
number of challenges to democracy (promotion), the prospects are sober-
ing. For years now, a backlash against democracy and democracy promo-
tion has manifested itself in many corners of the world, as authoritarian
regimes in the past years have more self-confidently brushed off democrati-
zation pressures and the phenomenon of shrinking civic spaces has become
global and enduring.9 Some authoritarian regimes have arguably begun to
offer their own model for export (Burnell 2010), while the U.S. is considering
its ‘decline’ in the face of authoritarian resurgence, particularly with regard
to Russia and China (Gunitsky 2018). That democracy promotion is not an
easy, somewhat smooth task realizable everywhere has become apparent as
resistance to prescribed democracy models has manifested ‘on the ground’.
Talk about democracy (promotion) as an international norm (Schraeder
2002: 1) and a right to democracy has subsided and has made way for catch-
words such as ‘sovereignty’ and ‘ownership’, which have regained strength
in the international debate. As Carothers and Brechenmacher (2014: 25)
conclude:

By the mid-2000s, a much more negative narrative about democracy

promotion had taken hold among power holders as well as citizens in
many parts of the developing and postcommunist worlds. Democracy
promotion had become synonymous for ‘Western-imposed regime
change’.

Clearly, then, the earlier declared ‘edge in the normative debate’ (Schraeder
2003: 25) has been lost, as the authoritarian backlash and growing chal-
lenges to democracy promotion have rekindled a normative debate about
the universal applicability and appropriateness of promoting ‘Western’
models of democracy. In this vein, attention has been drawn to a general
failure to adequately recognize and tackle the ‘essential contestability’ of
democracy in democracy promotion (Kurki 2010), and there have been calls
for the ‘consideration of the question of norms’, such as asking ‘which in-
ternational norms cover democracy promotion’ (Carothers 2010a: 67; Poppe
and Wolff 2013a). Central normative issues with regard to democracy pro-
motion include questions about the meaning(s) of democracy and democ-
racy promotion’s relation to other normative goals and to interests.
 Determinants, debates, and continuity 21
The diagnosis of continuity in the strategic-operational sphere
of U.S. democracy promotion
Research on democracy promotion has, in conjunction with the policy’s
elevation as an explicit and central foreign policy goal, experienced ma-
jor growth during the past two decades, but is currently in decline again.
Scholars have tackled a variety of issues, among them: the different means,
determinants, and rationales of democracy promotion on the side of the ‘do-
nors’10 as well as (non-)appropriation of democratic norms on the part of the
‘recipients’;11 whether external interference is or can be legal or legitimate;12
whether U.S. democracy promotion has been effective and why (mostly)
not;13 the likelihood for outsiders to successfully influence the democra-
tization of a country;14 and whether certain preconditions and a certain
sequence are necessary for the establishment of a functioning democracy
(Diamond et al. 2010: 127–176). The only limited effectiveness of democracy
promotion as well as more fundamental criticism of the policy in principle15
has led scholars to call more attention to the potentially problematic na-
ture of the norms and expectations that inform the shaping and devising of
democracy promotion policy. Some have begun to question the ‘premises’
(Goldsmith 2008) and ‘ideological origins’ (Desch 2008) informing democ-
racy promotion and to emphasize their ‘conceptual contestability’ (Kurki
2010). In delineating the premises of U.S. democracy promotion and assess-
ing their (non-)variability in political practice, I seek to contribute to the
growing body of literature concerned with normative dispositions and their
potential relationship to policy formation.
Before wondering whether or not the stability of basic premises can ac-
count for the continuity of U.S. democracy promotion policy over the past
two decades, I need to understand the shape and extent of this continuity in
detail, and this is the purpose guiding this section. What exactly is meant
when scholars and observers speak of a barley changing U.S. democracy
tradition in its foreign policy? What do authors refer to when they diagnose
continuity and where are its limits? In what areas do we, in fact, see move-
ment and shifts? The purpose of this section is, thus, to assess to what shape
and extent U.S. democracy promotion has been characterized by continuity.
In what follows, I am interested in assessing and analyzing the strategic-
operational policy level of U.S. democracy promotion. This means that
I look at the strategic place that democracy (promotion) holds in the admin-
istrations’ overall foreign policy design, especially in regard to general inter-
ests, as well as examine the practice of democracy promotion and thus the
more ‘operational’ side. In essence, what follows resembles a state of the art
overview of post-Cold War U.S. democracy promotion policy with a specific
focus on the strategic-operational level and with particular attention to the
claim that continuity much more than change has characterized this policy.
I do, however, also include in these sections my own analysis of the NSSs. As
the key strategic documents each administration issues, the respective NSS
22 Determinants, debates, and continuity
will tell me if and how democracy promotion is strategically embedded in
U.S. foreign policy. The more fundamental underlying assumptions – which
can, in principle, inform different strategies – and the general democracy
promotion worldview will be considered at a later point.16 As to the more
‘operational’ side of U.S. democracy promotion, I am interested in where
and to what extent the U.S. implemented this policy, and thus pay attention
to the actual regional or country focus, if and how the democracy assistance
budget has developed17 and where it went to, how the democracy bureau-
cracy has been restructured, and whether or not the range of democracy
promotion measures has included military means or not.

The Clinton administration: enlargement of the community

of market democracies
Although it took some time for a foreign policy agenda to take shape
under the Clinton administration, democracy promotion came to figure
prominently. The Clinton presidency over time and against strong resist-
ance greatly increased the rhetoric, budget, and institutional framework
of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy. But although, according
to Carothers (2000: 9), ‘Clinton did try to claim the term as his own’, he
was in fact building upon and accelerating trends that had their starting
points in the Reagan years and had largely been a bipartisan affair. Under
the, at least superficially, favorable international conditions of the 1990s,
in which the U.S. seemed to be enjoying a ‘unipolar moment’ and in which
global competition seemed to be reduced while the global community’s
‘normative integration’ was in progress (Brock 1999), democracy promo-
tion was given for the first time a very prominent place in official U.S.
foreign policy.
‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ was one of Bill Clinton’s highly successful cam-
paign slogans for the 1992 presidential election, which he won against his
predecessor George H.W. Bush, who was renowned for his foreign policy
successes. In a world now suddenly lacking the framework the Cold War
had offered for many decades, candidate and early President Clinton was
indeed slow to develop his own foreign policy profile and was hence strongly
criticized. During his election campaign, Clinton had only vaguely outlined
three major foreign policy goals: ‘[…] updating and restructuring American
military and security capabilities, elevating the role of economics in inter-
national affairs, and promoting democracy abroad’ (Brinkley 1997: 112). In
August 1993, he asked his staff to devise a strategic vision with an accom-
panying catchphrase. These ‘Kennan Sweepstakes’ (Brinkley 1997: 114)18
were won by the term ‘democratic enlargement’: ‘enlargement of the world’s
free community of market democracies’ (Lake 1993). Clinton and his staff
hoped that democratic enlargement would catch on and eventually replace
‘containment’ as the new grand strategy after the Cold War. The concept of
enlargement, however, never did catch on, let alone become America’s new
 Determinants, debates, and continuity 23
grand strategy (Travis 1998: 270). But the attempt to elevate enlargement
to the status of a grand strategy was seriously pursued and, although not
at all consistent in the application of the enlargement doctrine, the admin-
istration time and again returned to it, even increasing its efforts during
­Clinton’s second term. This prompted at least one commentator to label
these policy activities the ‘Clinton Doctrine’ (Brinkley 1997).
In his first term, the Clinton administration presented the underlying ra-
tionale of democracy promotion in its 1995 ‘National Security Strategy of
Engagement and Enlargement’19. Here, it is boldly affirmed that

[a]ll of America’s strategic interests — from promoting prosperity

at home to checking global threats abroad before they threaten our
­territory — are served by enlarging the community of democratic and
free market nations. Thus, working with new democratic states to help
preserve them as democracies committed to free markets and respect
for human rights, is a key part of our national security strategy.
(NSS 1995: 22)

The backdrop to this strategic outlook was the acknowledgment that rapid
globalization and technological progress in a modern world rendered the
separation between the domestic and the foreign policy domain obsolete
(NSS 1995: i). It did matter to the U.S., the administration argued, how oth-
ers governed themselves. But going further, the administration even argued
that, now that the Cold War was over, American ideals and interests had
become fused (Carothers 2007: 17). Elevating democracy promotion to the
status of grand strategy was also a response directed toward the growing
neo­isolationist tendencies in the U.S., and democracy promotion was ex-
pected to be a ‘means for rebuilding a foreign policy consensus’ after the
ending of the Cold War (Travis 1997: 254).
U.S. leadership, the administration argued in its NSS (1995: 7) as well
as in all U.S. foreign policy-related speeches, was indispensable for global
order and peace. A ‘contest as old as history – a struggle between freedom
and tyranny; between tolerance and isolation […] between hope and fear’
still ailed the world, the president explained (quoted from NSS 1995: 2), and
it was now the U.S.’s responsibility as well as most important objective to
make sure that liberty prevailed once more. Supporting democracy on a
global scale was presented to be the self-evident means in this ‘struggle’:

[…] we know that the larger the pool of democracies, the better off we,
and the entire community of nations, will be. Democracies create free
markets that offer economic opportunity, make for more reliable trad-
ing partners, and are far less likely to wage war on one another. It is in
our interest to do all that we can to enlarge the community of free and
open societies […].
(NSS 1995: 2)
24 Determinants, debates, and continuity
But not only was the spread of democracy considered to be in the U.S. na-
tional interest, it was also assumed that people everywhere aspired to the
same basic rights. Resenting the ‘moral relativism’ of those criticizing the
alleged imposition of U.S. values on others, the administration declared
that ‘[d]emocracy and human rights are universal yearnings and universal
norms, just as powerful in Asia as elsewhere’ (NSS 1995: 29).20
Three central goals were to direct U.S. foreign policy under the Clinton
administration: ‘enhancing our security’, ‘promoting prosperity at home’,
and ‘promoting democracy’ (NSS 1995: 7). That these goals are ‘mutually
supportive’ is emphatically and repeatedly emphasized within the NSS
(1995: i, 2, 7, 18, 21) as well as by a prominently placed Foreign Affairs article
by the deputy secretary of state entitled ‘Democracy and the National Inter-
est’ (Talbott 1996). From the official U.S. point of view, enhancing security,
promoting prosperity, and supporting democracy formed a perfect triangle.
Conceptually, however, the promotion of free markets and democracy more
and more fused in the minds of Clinton administration officials; so much
so that they were rhetorically merged together in the goal of ‘protecting,
consolidating and enlarging the community of free market democracies’
(NSS 1995: 7). The Clinton-coined term ‘market democracy’ was created in
order to show that promoting democracy and market economies were two
inseparable concepts, ‘that there was a symbiotic and positive relationship
between market forms and political democracy’ (Cox 2000: 232–33). This
­relationship was never illuminated further and has often been questioned,
but administration officials ‘could not conceive of one without the other, or
the strategy succeeding where either was absent’ (Cox 2000: 233; Markakis
2016: 20). Scholars have also debated whether ‘enlargement was about
spreading democracy through promoting the gospel of geoeconomics’ or
whether democracy promotion was subordinate to a neoliberal economic
agenda (Brinkley 1997: 125; Smith 2000: 78).
With regard to the implementation of democracy promotion policy, this
question is easily answered. Irrespective of how exactly the symbiotic re-
lationship between free market and democracy promotion was envisioned,
when economic concerns and democracy support pointed in different di-
rections in practice, the former usually won the day. Examples are the U.S.
relationship with China, where concerns about democracy were quickly
downplayed in favor of strengthening economic ties, and also Saudi ­Arabia,
Egypt, and several countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, where
economic benefits as well as security concerns frequently overrode the de-
mocracy agenda (Carothers 2000: 3). In the words of one observer, ‘U.S.
policy […] was an amalgam of heady pro-democracy rhetoric and mixed —
pro-democratic and traditional realist policies’ (Carothers 2007: 17).
The Clinton team took several steps to institutionalize democracy pro-
motion within U.S. government agencies and reorganized bureaucratic
structures around the goal of democracy promotion.21 The National Secu-
rity Council (NSC) now became equipped with a director for democracy
 Determinants, debates, and continuity 25
affairs, the State Department’s regional bureaus were assigned assistant
secretaries for the promotion of democracy, and several interagency
groups to coordinate democracy programs were created. Moreover, the
State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor re-
placed the former Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs,
was expanded and given more responsibilities, and USAID now had a
Center for Democracy and Governance. In aligning its development pol-
icies with other donor countries, the U.S. government also made develop-
ment aid conditional on democratic progress on the recipient side (Hook
2002: 115–16). The Clinton administration’s seriousness with democratic
enlargement was, furthermore, reflected in the filling of important posi-
tions with supporters of democratic enlargement (Bouchet 2013a: 164).
Anthony Lake in the NSC and Madeleine Albright (since 1997) in the State
Department were important proponents of the democracy agenda within
the administration. Former National Democratic Institute (NDI) presi-
dent Brian Atwood was made head of USAID, where he turned democracy
promotion into one of four top priorities. These staffing placements ‘cre-
ated an embryonic democracy promotion cadre within the policy-­making
apparatus that gave a fuller operational dimension to the democracy
agenda’, particularly in the administration’s second term (Bouchet 2013a:
165). Last, Clinton significantly raised spending on democracy support.
Financial democracy aid had existed as an item of expenditure since the
Reagan years but was now greatly accelerated; overall democracy assis-
tance, Carothers (2000: 4) calculates, was around $100 million annually
in 1990 and had increased to more than $700 million annually by 2000.22
While the Clinton White House was fairly successful in its agenda setting
during the first two years and did manage to embed democracy promotion
in the foreign policy circuit (Travis 1997: 256–257), several of its plans also
quickly ran into trouble. Attempts to create the position of an assistant sec-
retary for democracy and peacekeeping at the Defense Department and
to rewrite foreign aid laws in order to redirect foreign policy toward more
­engagement on the democracy front both failed – the latter particularly
because it was also ‘clearly an attempt to reduce congressional influence
over foreign policy’ (Travis 1997: 258), and thus faced Congressional resist-
ance. NEDs funding became another contentious issue, and whereas the
Clinton administration was able to resist Congressional attempts to abol-
ish ­USAID, it had to accept severe funding cutbacks (Hook 2002: 119–120;
Travis 1997: 258–259). Congressional resistance overall is a key reason why
‘­enlargement’ never really held sway beyond the administration. The lack
of public e­ nthusiasm for democracy promotion or even for foreign policy in
general, the greater latitude that interest groups and Congress consequently
had, ­polarized party politics after the so-called ‘Republican Revolution’23
as well as personal animosities all worked against the Clinton administra-
tion’s attempt to forge a new foreign policy consensus around the enlarge-
ment concept.
26 Determinants, debates, and continuity
In response, the administration had to scale back its enlargement efforts.
Three key adjustments to the strategy of enlargement were made: while
high-profile rhetoric was maintained, the administration ceased to push
its strategy as a priority; it shifted emphasis from democracy promotion
to free market promotion, which was more acceptable to many opponents
in Congress; and the continuing efforts to promote democracy assumed a
lower profile (Travis 1998: 262–265). Despite this resistance, however, and
‘although enlargement did not stick as a label, its rationale was one constant
throughout Clinton’s presidency’ (Bouchet 2013a: 164).
It is important to note that idealistic missions were not at the center of
the Clinton administration’s strategies. Along the lines of seeing the U.S. as
a ‘pragmatic Neo-Wilsonianist’ or a ‘pragmatic crusader’, Clinton was not
willing to place democratization above other goals but considered it to be
one objective among a number of others which were aimed at consolidat-
ing America’s hegemonic standing in the international system (Cox 2000:
228; Travis 1998: 263). In other words, promoting democracy, according to
Cox (2000: 221), was not a moral duty but a policy instrument to advance
American power. Consequently, American business efforts in the interna-
tional economy were more important to the president, who also made clear
that democracy promotion was only one contributor to national security,
which would still be pursued through traditional means (Carothers 2003: 96;
Cox 2000: 229–230). Democracy promotion, for foreign policy practice, was
hence one promising strategy among many others and would sometimes be
more and sometimes be less viable. This, as will become clear, is the stand-
ard conclusion that applies to the following administrations as well.
Accordingly, it has been pointed out that Clinton acted as a selective lib-
eral democratic internationalist who would stop short of using military force
for the sake of democracy abroad, with the exception of the multilateral in-
tervention in Haiti as well as the U.S. involvement in Somalia, the latter of
which seriously backfired (Peceny 1999: 2; Smith 1994: 325–26). In a similar
vein, the (not democracy-related) strikes against Iraq ‘were more measured
than many neoconservatives especially wanted’ (Smith 2013: 26). Not only
was the Clinton administration (increasingly) reluctant to become militar-
ily active for democracy promotion, it was also mainly focused on those
nations already well engaged in the democratization process by themselves.
The allocation of democracy assistance reflects this focus, as the main aid
recipients were Latin American countries and countries in the former Soviet
sphere (Azpuru et al. 2008: 154). Several statements of Clinton representa-
tives, among them Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, underline this
policy direction:

Henry Clay articulated a standard that holds up today: ‘I would not

force upon other nations our principles and our liberty, if they did not
want them. But, if an abused and oppressed people will their freedom;
if they seek to establish it; if, in truth, they have established it; we have a
Another random document with
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dans la limite de ses moyens au Pas-de-la-Mule. Rien n’indiquait
que dans cette maison qu’il avait louée on pût boire et manger. Il se
tenait sur le seuil et, tranquille et joyeux, invitait les promeneurs à
entrer comme s’il eût dit :
— Ne vous gênez pas : c’est moi qui régale aujourd’hui.
La tante, la bonne tante, disait à Jeanne et à Vaneau :
— Vous n’avez rien à faire ici, les enfants. Allez donc ramasser
des fleurs.
Ils s’en allaient le long des avenues jusques aux champs voisins,
beaucoup plus riches d’herbe, de bleuets et de coquelicots que les
champs et que la plaine des Lilas. Mais Vaneau s’ennuyait
beaucoup plus ici. Pourtant Jeanne était jolie aussi, mais Vaneau
trouvait qu’il s’en fallait de beaucoup qu’elle le fût autant que Lucie.
Et puis il n’avait rien à lui dire. Il devina plutôt qu’il ne l’entendit, une
fois qu’ils rentraient de la cueillette, que la bonne tante demandait à
Jeanne :
— Il ne t’a rien dit ?
Songeaient-ils donc à lui comme gendre possible ? Il en souriait,
ayant d’autres projets plus magnifiques que d’épouser une petite
bourgeoise. Car il continuait de voir Lucie. Elle lui écrivit même :
Je compte que vous viendrez ce soir car j’ai à vous parler mon
père part ce matin à Deauville je serai donc libre ce soir et pendant
quatre soirs de suite.
Quatre soirs seulement ? Vaneau trouva d’abord que c’était peu,
pour une saison au bord de la mer. Mais il repartirait sans doute. En
tout cas le bonheur était là.
Ici il faudrait écrire : « La nuit était délicieuse. Le Génie des airs
secouait sa chevelure bleue… » Ils étaient au square du Temple par
une nuit d’Août ; les étoiles se reflétaient en tremblant un peu dans
l’eau des vasques et les arbustes des massifs trop soignés
retrouvaient les mêmes frissons que les grands arbres sous le large
clair de lune dans les forêts sauvages. Non. Vaneau n’était plus à
Paris. Il ne voyait pas les maisons. Il n’entendait pas rouler les
voitures. Il était assis tout près de Lucie plus grave que de coutume
parce que sur elle aussi devait peser le rêve. Brusquement elle
soupira, défaillant presque. Maladroitement il l’embrassa sur la joue
bien plus par convenance que par désir. Puis s’estimant aussitôt
ridicule et sachant bien qu’il n’aurait pas pu comme les amants
romantiques prononcer les paroles ni faire les gestes qu’il eût fallu, il
se croisa les bras en regardant le ciel. Il pensait avec délices à
Atala, et être assis à côté de Lucie dans un square désert devenait
pour lui un supplice.
Tout a une fin. Les trois autres soirs Vaneau ne la vit pas. En vain
il l’attendit. Mais deux semaines après elle lui écrivit :
Excusez-moi si je ne vous ai pas écrit plus tôt mais il m’est
impossible de faire un pas sans être épiée mon père est rentré à une
heure du matin juste le soir que j’étais sortie jusqu’à minuit avec
vous…
Il la revit tantôt seule, tantôt avec Sidonie. Mais on aurait dit
qu’elle avait changé. Elle semblait plus lointaine, regardant, écoutant
autour d’elle remuer la vie de Paris qui recommençait avec les
premiers jours de l’automne.

Ce soir-là comme les autres soirs, vers le moment où les

horloges allaient à peu près s’entendre pour marquer sept heures,
Vaneau tressaillit d’angoisse. Enveloppé de brouillard, glissant
parfois sur le trottoir humide il faisait les cent pas devant une maison
de la rue Réaumur, non loin de ce square du Temple où les étoiles
avaient cessé de trembler dans l’eau, les arbustes de frissonner. Il
levait les yeux vers un troisième étage composé de deux fenêtres
sans rideaux violemment éclairées par une lampe que l’on devinait
sans abat-jour ; c’était un atelier de Fleurs et plumes. Allait-elle
venir ? Veillait-elle ? N’était-elle point encore partie avant l’heure ?
N’avait-elle point passé près de lui distraite, sans le voir ? Avec ce
brouillard tout était possible. Pendant qu’il marchait vers la rue Saint-
Martin ne s’en était-elle pas allée du côté de la Bastille ? Il s’affolait,
torturé par ces doutes successifs. Sans pardessus en cette fin
d’Octobre, il tremblait aussi de froid.
Du moins eut-il une certitude quand il vit sortir de l’étroit couloir,
non pas Lucie qu’il attendait, mais Sidonie. Elle aussi l’avait vu,
venait à lui.
— Est-elle déjà partie ? demanda Vaneau. Ou bien vous suit-
elle ?
— Elle s’en est allée à cinq heures ! répondit Sidonie.
— Ah ? murmura Vaneau. Pourtant l’autre jour si vous vous en
souvenez elle m’avait promis de descendre à six heures et demie.
— Oui ! fit Sidonie du bout des lèvres. Que voulez-vous !…
Ils n’avaient pas encore quitté le trottoir où des passants les
bousculaient. Ainsi elle était partie ? Elle l’avait fait exprès sans nul
doute. Désemparé, désespéré, Vaneau fût resté là des heures sans
bouger. Quand Sidonie lui tendit la main pour le quitter il lui dit :
— Est-ce que cela vous ennuierait que je vous accompagne un
peu ?
Il pourrait au moins parler de Lucie. On n’est pas pour rien
camarades d’atelier : Sidonie ne pourrait pas rester muette.
Elle ne lui répondit pas en riant :
— Mais non, au contraire !
Elle dit seulement un peu indifférente :
— Ce sera comme vous voudrez. Cela ne me gêne pas.
Par des rues tortueuses qui semblaient hésiter sur le chemin
qu’elles avaient à suivre parmi des groupes d’hommes et de
femmes, ils s’en allèrent. Pour la première fois il se trouvait seul
avec Sidonie. Presque tout de suite il eut l’idée de lui demander :
— Mais votre ami vous attend peut-être ?
— Oh ! non, dit-elle. Soyez tranquille.
L’ami de Sidonie ! Que de fois depuis quelque temps il en avait
été question ! Lucie ne tarissait pas d’éloges sur son compte et,
chose étrange, Sidonie n’en parlait jamais. C’était un jeune homme
de famille riche dont les poches n’étaient jamais dépourvues d’or.
Avec lui Sidonie n’avait pas le temps de s’ennuyer. Elle connaissait
les nuits que l’on passe dans la lumière, les parfums, la musique, et
les dimanches où la banlieue tout entière offre ses guinguettes
comme des paradis terrestres et ses cabinets particuliers comme
autant de nids délicieux. Lucie disait :
— Sidonie ? Mais il y a beau temps qu’elle aurait pu lâcher
l’atelier ! Seulement ça la distrait de venir travailler. Ah ! si j’étais à sa
place !…
Pour qu’elle y fût que Vaneau n’eût-il pas donné ! Quand elle
parlait de l’ami de Sidonie il se faisait petit, il eût voulu rentrer sous
terre. Il songeait :
— Elle doit commencer à trouver que mon talent tarde à se
manifester et que je mets de l’obstination à ne pas m’enrichir !
Il ne se disait pas qu’elle avait pu se fatiguer surtout de
l’amoureux sentimental qu’il ne pouvait cesser d’être.
Il ne put se retenir de soupirer et dit :
— Elle ne tient plus à moi n’est-ce pas ? Elle ne veut plus me
voir ? Dites-moi la vérité.
— Elle ne me fait pas de confidences, répondit Sidonie.
Mais il entendit que cette phrase sonnait faux.
— Vous mentez mademoiselle Sidonie ! riposta-t-il en la
regardant bien en face. Il vit ses yeux bleus comme ceux des jeunes
filles dans les pays où l’on fait de jolies chansons sur les pigeons et
les bouleaux. Elle fit un effort pour balbutier :
— Mais non, je vous assure… Je ne mens pas… Lucie ne m’a
jamais rien dit… Elle est partie ce soir à cinq heures…
Il tendit la main à Sidonie pour lui dire adieu. Tout à coup, elle se
décida :
— Eh bien, non ! dit-elle. Lucie est une petite écervelée. Oh ! elle
est bien gentille mais elle a ça dans le sang… Elle vous a raconté
n’est-ce pas l’histoire de son sculpteur, celle de son employé ?… Sa
belle-mère n’y était pour rien. C’est elle qui s’est fatiguée d’eux.
Écoutez-moi : c’est elle qui a trouvé cette histoire de mon ami. Je vis
tranquille dans ma chambre ; il y a des soirs où je m’ennuie toute
seule mais j’y suis habituée. Et c’est Lucie qui m’a dit : « Je
commence à avoir assez de lui. Alors, pour lui montrer que je vois
qu’il n’a pas d’argent je lui raconterai que tu as un ami riche qui te
paye tout ce dont tu as envie : des bijoux que tu gardes chez toi et
des parties de plaisir. » Je lui ai dit : « Tu ne feras pas cela. Tu vas le
faire souffrir. » Mais j’ai eu beau la sermonner : elle n’en a pas moins
fait à sa tête. Quand nous étions tous les trois ensemble et qu’elle
parlait de mon ami j’avais envie de pleurer… à cause de vous.
Vaneau l’écoutait. Il marchait machinalement. C’était la fin de
tout, la mort d’un rêve. La brume de l’automne s’épaississait autour
de lui. La vie était toute noire comme un sépulcre dont nul ange ne
pourra soulever la pierre. Pourquoi fallait-il que si vite Lucie eût
oublié lettres, baisers, promenades sous le soleil et sous le clair de
lune ! Selon son habitude Vaneau tourna son œil en dedans et
découvrit qu’il n’avait à s’en prendre qu’à lui-même. Grâce à son
ascendance d’hommes et de femmes qui des siècles durant avaient
peiné sur une terre ingrate, il n’avait pas le sou et ignorait la façon
de séduire et de retenir les jeunes filles de Paris. Il dit :
— Mademoiselle Sidonie vous m’avez fait beaucoup de peine.
Mais je vous remercie.
Il lui tendit la main, cette fois pour de bon.
— Vous ne m’en voulez pas ? dit-elle.
— Non ! Non ! Adieu.
Il voulut continuer :
— Quand vous la reverrez…
Mais il ne put pas en dire davantage.
 VII

Il rentra plus tôt que de coutume, étouffant.

— Te voilà déjà ? lui dit-on. Ça tombe bien. Justement M.
Malissard a à te parler.
Lucie aussi naguère avait à lui parler !
Plusieurs fois chez les Lavaud Vaneau avait vu « M. Malissard »,
comme ils disaient avec une nuance de respect. Malissard avait été
de leurs clients à l’époque où — il s’en vantait encore — , il était
« dans la basoche ». Veuf il s’était épris de leur bonne, et l’ayant
épousée avait cessé depuis nombre d’années de prendre ses repas
chez eux. Il continuait pourtant de les voir de temps à autre quand
ses affaires l’appelaient dans le quartier Saint-Georges ; car il était
maintenant représentant de commerce. La vie sédentaire ne lui
convenait pas. Passer ses journées à battre le pavé de Paris c’était
sa santé ; ce l’était aussi de boire d’innombrables verres et Lavaud
avait un vin blanc que Malissard goûtait particulièrement. Il
consacrait plus de temps à se désaltérer qu’à tâcher de placer sa
marchandise. Laquelle ? On ne savait pas au juste. L’essentiel était
que sa femme tînt une loge de concierge boulevard Magenta : la vie
sédentaire lui convenait-elle ? Malissard ne le lui avait pas demandé.
C’était un homme de haute taille, aux larges épaules, chauve, qui ne
doutait de rien. C’était l’homme qui jadis clerc d’huissier, avait sans
un serrement de cœur pénétré dans de misérables logis pour y saisir
quelques meubles et des hardes, l’homme que n’avait jamais ému la
misère des hommes. Il en faut bien pour tous les métiers, n’est-ce
pas ? Les chasseurs assassinent les chevreuils doux, les bons
lièvres et les gentilles perdrix ; les hurlements du porc qu’il saigne
sont agréables à l’oreille du paysan.
 De sa première femme Malissard avait eu un fils, un des deux
saute-ruisseau qui travaillaient chez l’avoué et ce n’était pas un
autre que Malissard qui avait trouvé à Vaneau cette place de
troisième clerc. Ce soir-là selon son habitude Malissard fut net. Un
huissier de Saint-Denis avait besoin d’un clerc : cent vingt francs par
mois pour commencer, plus des indemnités de déplacements et de
saisies. N’était-ce pas merveilleux ? Cette fois c’était beaucoup plus
que le pied à l’étrier. Vaneau pourtant n’en éprouva aucune joie. Que
lui importait ce commencement de fortune puisque avec Lucie tout
était fini ? A peine put-il articuler quelques paroles de consentement.
— Qu’est-ce que tu as donc ce soir ? Tu es malade ? lui
demanda Lavaud enchanté à la pensée que son neveu gagnant
davantage allait lui donner un peu plus d’argent. Et il pensait : « Ce
serait du joli juste au moment où on lui déniche une situation
convenable ! » Sur la table il y avait une bouteille de vin blanc.
— Je ne sais pas, répondit Vaneau. Je ne me sens pas bien. Je
ne dînerai pas ; j’aime mieux me coucher tout de suite.
— Allons, allons ! dit la bonne tante. Tu n’es pas mort encore, va !
Tu es solide. Tu auras sans doute pris froid.
Pour la forme il but un grog. A chaque instant l’un ou l’autre
pénétrait dans son cabinet. Il faisait semblant de dormir pour n’être
pas obligé de répondre à leurs questions. N’allaient-ils pas bientôt
vider les lieux pour qu’il pût pleurer à son aise ?
Le lendemain il donna sa démission chez l’avoué qui n’insista
pas du tout pour le retenir : il ne rendait pas de services
exceptionnels. Le premier venu pourrait le remplacer. Le
surlendemain à sept heures du matin il prit à la Trinité le tramway
pour Saint-Denis. Il vit des pays qu’il ne connaissait pas encore :
Saint-Ouen avec ses cabanes et ses masures, la Plaine avec ses
champs semés de détritus et ses usines dont les cheminées
montaient le plus haut possible pour cracher à la face du ciel des
flocons de fumée grise. Partout du brouillard, comme si au nord de
Paris on avait été déjà vraiment dans le Nord de la France. Derrière
des vitres de buvettes bâties en planches luisaient des lampes sans
abat-jour posées sur le comptoir.
Comme celle de l’avoué l’étude de l’huissier était située au fond
d’une cour, rue de Paris ; mais elle était plus sommairement
meublée et ses bureaux n’étaient que des tables en bois blanc. Tout
de suite Vaneau regretta « son » premier clerc quand il se trouva en
présence d’un homme qui, ressemblant à s’y méprendre à
Malissard, mais encore plus grand et plus chauve, eût sans doute
mieux employé ses forces à rouler des barriques pleines. Cet
homme regarda de haut — c’est le cas de le dire, — Vaneau, le
conduisit dans une pièce obscure puis regagnant le cabinet qu’il
occupait ferma sa porte. Vaneau découvrit dans l’ombre un être velu
et roux, à crâne pointu, qui lui dit avec un fort accent alsacien :
— C’est vous, le nouveau quatrième clerc ? Vous sortez de chez
un avoué ? On n’y fait pas de bon travail, d’habitude.
Il se leva pour le mettre au courant. Vaneau vit qu’il était chaussé
de galoches couvertes de boue, vêtu d’un pantalon graisseux, d’un
paletot sans forme appréciable et d’un gilet de laine jadis brun.
— Vous avez raison, Kauffer ! appuya avec un fort accent
parisien un grand dadais dégingandé d’environ dix-huit ans, tiré à
quatre épingles mais comme un ouvrier endimanché. Il avait cette
pâleur particulière aux voyous des quartiers excentriques et de la
banlieue. Il portait des bottines, un complet veston noir et une
chemise dont le col mou était rabattu sur une de ces cravates
cordelettes qui se terminent sur la poitrine par deux houppes.
« Que suis-je venu faire dans cette galère ! » se dit Vaneau. Sa
détresse n’en fut que plus grande. Mais il se mit à barbouiller du
papier timbré.
Il passa là sept jours affreux. Du coin où opérait Kauffer, —
derrière un amoncellement de dossiers et de paperasses de toutes
formes, — s’échappait une odeur indéfinissable. Vaneau sut bientôt
à quoi s’en tenir quand il eut appris que l’être roux et velu était
marchand d’habits — sans doute n’avait-il pas pu vendre le sien, —
et de ferraille, rue de Flandre : bien entendu c’était sa femme qui en
son absence faisait marcher « le petit commerce ». Il venait de Paris
et y rentrait à pied pour économiser quelques sous de transport
apportant chaque matin sa nourriture dans un vieux panier rafistolé
qu’il remportait le soir, lourd de tous les croûtons de pain et de tous
les déchets qu’il ramassait sur la route et dans les rues. L’autre,
Grenier, venait de Puteaux par des combinaisons de tramways.
Moins avare que Kauffer il allait déjeuner au restaurant. Désorienté,
Vaneau lui avait humblement demandé la permission de l’y
accompagner. De telle façon que de huit heures du matin à six
heures du soir il n’avait pas une minute de vraie solitude. Mais peut-
être valait-il mieux qu’il en fût ainsi. Toute la journée, c’étaient
« l’accent alsacien » et « l’accent parisien » qui parlaient affaires :
commandements, assignations. Ils spéculaient tout naturellement
sur la misère humaine. Reniflant de loin les saisies, les ventes aux
enchères, ils se frottaient les mains, comme les corbeaux croassent
autour des bêtes qui n’ont plus qu’un souffle de vie.
Entre eux deux Vaneau se sentait mal à son aise, et ce n’était
pas seulement à cause de l’odeur de Kauffer ni de leur
inconscience. Il y avait autour de lui une atmosphère où il étouffait.
C’était bien la lumière grise des pays du Nord qui pénétrait ici par la
fenêtre. Les carillons qu’il entendait ajoutaient encore à son
angoisse. Et il lui semblait impossible que Saint-Denis, l’automne
venu, ne fût qu’à quelques kilomètres de distance de Paris. Quand il
voyait aux environs de midi tout près des rues les plus fréquentées
et autour de la basilique ces vieilles petites maisons aux façades
suintantes d’humidité, ces espèces d’auberges où l’on vendait plus
de cidre et de bière que de vin, ces noms flamands peints sur les
devantures, ce morne canal qui ne servait qu’à refléter la désolation
du ciel, il se faisait à lui même l’effet d’un exilé qui jamais ne rentrera
dans sa patrie.
Il attendait avec impatience six heures du soir mais il n’arrivait
pas à Paris avant huit heures. Ce papier timbré qu’il avait passé sa
journée à noircir, il fallait qu’il le distribuât. La Courneuve,
Aubervilliers, Pantin, Saint-Ouen, tout cela était soi-disant sur son
chemin. Grenier « faisait » Asnières, Clichy, Colombes, Courbevoie.
Kauffer avait hâte, en ce qui le concernait, de rentrer rue de Flandre.
Du moins de ces localités où il semait l’inquiétude ou la désolation
Grenier connaissait-il de longue date toutes les rues, toutes les
venelles, toutes les impasses. Mais Vaneau ! Il lui fallait s’avancer à
tâtons dans la nuit noire sans même une canne, butant contre des
pierres, courant le risque de tomber dans des fossés, dans des
trous, marchant trois fois plus qu’il n’eût été nécessaire vu son
ignorance des topographies locales, frappant pour demander son
chemin à des portes qui ne s’ouvraient pas toujours, allumant un
journal en guise de torche pour lire dans le quartier des chiffonniers
à Saint-Ouen un numéro sur une porte au fond d’une ruelle obscure,
déposant son enveloppe sur le zinc d’un bistro de la rue La Fontaine
et se hâtant de fuir parce que trois rôdeurs attablés et jouant aux
cartes l’avaient dévisagé et que la mine du patron n’était guère plus
rassurante que la leur, courant le risque encore d’être attaqué,
blessé, tué peut-être, et ne réussissant jamais à se défaire de tous
ses papiers ! Invariablement il en rapportait le lendemain matin.
Quand il disait : « Je n’ai pas pu trouver », ou bien : « Il n’y avait
personne », Kauffer haussait les épaules en baragouinant, et
Grenier, à qui pourtant Vaneau offrait un petit verre à midi pour se
concilier sa bienveillance, ricanait de plaisir : il ne rapportait jamais
rien, lui. Qu’est-ce qu’on apprend donc, chez les avoués ? Le sosie
de Malissard, qui consentait quelquefois à sortir de sa retraite,
regardait Vaneau d’un air qui n’était pas plus rassurant que celui du
« patron » de la rue La Fontaine.
A peine cependant si Vaneau y prenait garde. Il ne faisait que
penser à Lucie. Il se disait : « Je récolte ce que d’autres ont semé
pour eux sans savoir de quelle amertume ce serait pour moi. Si
j’avais eu de l’argent et cette audace que donnent la richesse et la
confiance en soi-même je n’aurais pas agi avec elle comme j’ai fait.
Elle a voulu se débarrasser de moi et c’est ma très grande faute. Si
du moins je pouvais encore essayer de la revoir ! » Malgré lui il ne
pouvait se résigner à croire que Sidonie lui eût dit la vérité. Peut-être
une entrevue avec Lucie lui eût-elle permis de la reconquérir ; mais
le moyen, quand il était pris par la vie jusqu’à huit heures du soir ?
Le dimanche précédent il avait rôdé toute l’après-midi dans le
Marais. Plus de dix fois il avait traversé la rue Pavée, ayant soin de
changer de trottoir pour que les curieux, s’il y en avait, eussent
moins de chances de le reconnaître : inutile promenade. Il n’avait
aperçu Lucie ni à sa fenêtre ni dehors. Sept jours durant il se
morfondit, commettant bévue sur bévue, si bien que le samedi à
quatre heures le sosie de Malissard le fit comparaître, lui aligna
vingt-huit francs sur le coin de son bureau, — par exception ce
n’était pas une table en bois blanc, — et lui annonça qu’à dater de
cet instant il cessait d’être quatrième clerc en l’étude de Me
Rouchon. Quelle joie ce fut d’abord pour Vaneau ! Par acquit de
conscience — pour acquit d’autre sorte il signa un reçu, — il s’en fut
serrer les mains du marchand d’habits et du jeune dadais. Il leur
abandonna généreusement ses fournitures de bureau et partit sans
même se retourner pour un adieu à la ville du Nord. Il ne se disait
pas : « Me voici sur le pavé. Qu’est-ce que je vais devenir ? » mais :
« Je suis libre, maintenant. Je pourrai revoir Lucie ». Pourtant par
esprit d’économie comme Kauffer et parce qu’il avait deux heures
devant lui il regagna Paris à pied. Il fit les cent pas devant la maison
de la rue Réaumur. Il vit sortir les ouvrières. Il ne reconnut ni Sidonie
ni Lucie. N’importe : être revenu là lui avait fait du bien. Il lui semblait
qu’il se fût de nouveau rapproché d’elle.
Mais quand il annonça chez les Lavaud que demain il n’irait pas
à Saint-Denis parce que le sosie de Malissard l’avait remercié avec
vingt-huit francs à l’appui, Vaneau en entendit ! « Eh bien, c’est du
joli ! Si nous nous attendions à cela de toi ! Qu’est-ce que tu as donc
fait ? Si tes parents venaient à apprendre que tu es sans place !…
Que vas-tu devenir ?… » A la caisse, la cousine Jeanne fronçait les
sourcils. L’employé de Mossamédès, — un Suisse barbu comme
Kauffer, mais noir, — le seul du petit groupe qui fût resté fidèle aux
Lavaud, riait silencieusement : ce Vaneau qui avait pensé se faire
une brillante situation et peut-être pouvoir se payer un jour des
dîners de deux francs ! Le neveu d’un marchand de soupe, je vous
demande un peu ! Maintenant il courbait la tête, et sa pensée se
détournait du pays de l’amour pour s’orienter vers le pays de la
misère. Oui : qu’allait-il devenir ? Pourquoi n’avait-il pas fait tout son
possible pour que Me Rouchon fût content de ses services ?
Resterait-il à la charge des Lavaud qui avaient toutes les peines du
monde à joindre les deux bouts ? L’occasion était belle de leur dire :
— J’ai ma dignité. Je vais prendre ma malle et vider votre
cabinet. Avec mes vingt-huit francs je me louerai une chambre
d’hôtel, et vous n’entendrez plus parler de moi. N’ayez crainte : je
m’arrangerai.
Mais Lavaud ne voudrait rien entendre. Car Vaneau avec sa
manie de s’analyser en même temps qu’il prononçait une phrase de
vive voix ou mentalement songeait à toutes les réponses que
pouvait lui faire son interlocuteur. Et son gros homme d’oncle n’eût
pas manqué de lui dire :
— Ta, ta ta ! Tu vas commencer par rester ici ! Si tes parents t’ont
confié à nous, ce n’est bien sûr pas pour que tu t’en ailles au
moment où tu es dans l’embarras.
Et Vaneau voyait comme dans un rêve défiler devant lui l’armée
innombrable des sans-travail : mendiants avec leurs besaces et
leurs bâtons ; femmes parfois proprement mises qui s’arrêtent une
seconde pour demander l’aumône et n’osent pas se retourner quand
on ne leur a rien donné ; pauvres chanteuses des rues et des cours
qui ne savent qu’une chanson : elles tiennent un petit sur leurs bras,
et d’autres, accrochés à leurs jupes, se précipitent pour ramasser un
sou quand il en tombe ; hommes chaussés de savates avec un
veston boutonné jusqu’au cou, coiffés de melons bosselés et
poussiéreux, qui courent longtemps derrière un fiacre chargé de
malles et à qui l’on fait signe quand la voiture s’est arrêtée qu’on n’a
pas besoin d’eux ; tous ceux contre qui s’acharne la vie comme un
chien qui mord aux jambes le bétail qui ne va pas assez vite vers
l’abattoir. Ils se pressaient comme un troupeau dans la brume et
quelques-uns, n’y voyant plus clair et croyant marcher encore sur la
berge du fleuve, faisaient un pas de trop. Vaneau eut un frisson. Il se
reprit vite.
 « J’aurai toujours la ressource, pensa-t-il, de retourner chez
nous. »
Mais ce ne fut que pour se répondre aussitôt à lui-même :
« Non. Qu’y deviendrais-je ? J’ai été remplacé chez M. Auribault,
comme chez l’avoué, comme chez l’huissier. Nulle part je ne suis
indispensable. Je m’en vais et personne ne me regrette. Je suis à
Paris : j’y resterai. Ne me dois-je pas à la littérature ? Et puis je ne
veux pas, je ne peux pas m’éloigner de Lucie. »
Dès le lendemain il partit à la recherche d’une situation. Il
traversa des cours encombrées de ballots, de caisses que clouaient
des ouvriers. Il vit des hommes qui se retranchaient derrière des
bureaux surchargés de papiers, de crayons et de porte-plumes ;
après avoir pris son nom et son adresse, ils lui disaient : « Je vous
écrirai », et ne lui écrivaient pas. Il lut des journaux à la rubrique
« Offres d’emplois » et il fallait frapper ou sonner à des portes ; mais
ou bien il ne faisait pas l’affaire, ou bien la place était déjà prise par
quelqu’un qui s’était présenté dès la première heure. Il vit un vieux
prêtre de Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle qui l’envoya chez les
Dominicains d’Arcueil ; vaine démarche, ils n’avaient besoin de
personne. Nulle part ses capacités ni son diplôme ne l’imposaient ;
et il passait dans les rues crotté jusqu’à l’échine avec plus que
jamais la certitude d’être un zéro parmi cette foule de trois millions
d’hommes. L’automne fut particulièrement pluvieux et sombre.
Vaneau se rappelait celui de l’année précédente où il s’impatientait
déjà de n’avoir point rencontré sa Muse. Hélas ! Il avait suffi de
quelques mois pour qu’elle se fût éloignée de lui. Mais pas un soir il
ne manqua le rendez-vous qu’elle ne lui avait pas donné. Tantôt il
revenait piétiner devant la maison de la rue Réaumur, espérant
contre toute espérance qu’elle avait pu ce jour-là recommencer à
travailler après avoir été malade ; tantôt pris d’une inspiration subite
il se précipitait vers la rue Pavée, pensant qu’à cette minute même
elle pouvait rentrer. Pas plus ici que là il ne la voyait. Il n’osait point
stationner sur le trottoir en face de « sa » maison : malgré la nuit la
belle-mère aurait pu le reconnaître et peut-être l’apostropher. Et si le
père s’en était mêlé ? Puis au bout d’une semaine il cessa de venir
avec fièvre comme à un rendez-vous qu’il eût craint de manquer. Il
se préoccupa moins de l’heure. Il faisait maintenant des pèlerinages.
Il pensait moins à Lucie et davantage à lui-même. Du moins le
croyait-il, car même à l’époque où il ne rêvait que d’elle c’était pour
sa propre joie et non pour celle de Lucie. Ce quartier qu’il avait
exploré avant de la connaître prenait un sens pour lui. Avec elle il
était entré dans ce café de la rue de Turenne, dans ce bar de la rue
des Francs-Bourgeois, chez ce marchand de vins de la rue de
Thorigny. Et il y rentrait de nouveau, seul, pour s’asseoir à la table
où il avait pris place avec elle. Et c’était d’une infiniment douce
mélancolie.
Aux heures de répit que lui laissaient ses courses il flânait
comme autrefois à Montmartre et sur les quais. Au square Saint-
Pierre les dernières feuilles mouillées tombaient des arbres. Les
couvercles des boîtes étaient aux trois quarts rabattus sur les livres
à cause de la pluie ; et sur Paris tout entier pesait un couvercle de
brume. Paris des jours de semaine que Vaneau saisissait du dehors
et qu’ignorent ceux qui du matin au soir sont enfermés dans les
boutiques, dans les ateliers, dans les magasins, dans les bureaux,
Paris secoué par les camions et les voitures de livraison qui se
reposent le dimanche, quartiers du travail où dès trois heures de
l’après-midi des centaines de fenêtres s’illuminaient comme pour
une fête à laquelle il ne lui était pas donné de participer ! Solitaire,
assis sur un banc du square haut juché, il n’en prenait pas moins
plaisir à entendre siffler le vent et monter jusqu’à lui la rumeur de la
ville. Se croyant grandi d’avoir souffert, il se répétait que les chants
désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux ; il s’évertuait à
paraphraser la Nuit de Mai et la Nuit d’Octobre.
Enfin, cicatrisée la blessure qui à la honte du poète lyrique qu’il
croyait être n’avait jamais été bien profonde, la conscience
tranquille, — ne faisait-il pas démarche sur démarche ? Si rien ne se
présentait, ce n’était pas sa faute, — il en arriva peu à peu à
s’abandonner au bonheur d’être libre. Il avait le vivre et le couvert
assurés. Il se mit à causer plus familièrement avec Jeanne bien
qu’elle fût toujours la même petite bourgeoise. Et un soir sans qu’il
lui en coûtât il s’abstint de son pèlerinage.
 TROISIÈME PARTIE

Par un soir d’avril où l’on peut déjà laisser ouverte une fenêtre,
depuis plus de deux heures assis à sa table de travail Vaneau
peinait sur un poème. Quelquefois plusieurs vers venaient d’un seul
jet. Souvent il fallait qu’il cherchât ; son brouillon se noircissait de
ratures. Enfin il se leva, joyeux tout de même, se frottant les mains. Il
ne put résister au désir de faire une fois de plus en seigneur et
maître le tour de sa propriété. Pourtant ce n’était qu’un logement de
deux pièces et une cuisine. Mais tout s’y trouvait rangé en bon ordre,
depuis le lit dans son alcôve sans rideaux, jusqu’aux cinq casseroles
de tailles différentes accrochées chacune à son clou dans la cuisine ;
l’armoire faisait en sorte de ne pas occuper trop d’espace. Au-
dessus de sa table de travail trois rayons se succédaient qui ne
fléchissaient pas sous le poids des livres. Sur la cheminée la
pendule vivait seconde par seconde toutes les minutes de chaque
jour. Au crépuscule les derniers reflets de la lumière se réfugiaient
dans la glace. Parmi cette solitude si longtemps désirée Vaneau se
sentait chez lui.
Une des fenêtres donnait sur la cour où un arbre avait poussé
comme s’il eût dû monter un jour plus haut que les maisons.
 Des fiacres roulaient sur les pavés ; des chanteurs se
lamentaient à l’aide de violons et de guitares sur des déclins
d’amour ; mais Vaneau ne les entendait pas. Dehors la vie bruissait
comme la mer. L’heure sonnait à quelques minutes d’intervalle au
clocher d’une mairie et au fronton d’une église qui n’avait pas de
clocher. Tout le long d’une grande avenue c’étaient les clochettes
claires des tramways, les appels des marchandes des quatre-
saisons ; plus loin les sifflets des trains de petite ceinture et les
sirènes des usines dispersées dans la plaine. Perché en haut de la
maison comme un mousse à la pointe du grand mât il se laissait —
plus qu’il ne pouvait se diriger lui-même — emporter vers des
mondes inconnus. Parfois il abordait aux rivages de son enfance
comme d’une terre qu’il eût découverte. Des sensations oubliées
ayant germé s’étaient développées pareilles à de grandes fleurs
dont respirer le parfum le faisait défaillir.
Les maisons des provinces ne ressemblent pas à celles de Paris
que l’on quitte pour un oui pour un non. Aujourd’hui nous sommes à
Montmartre ; au terme prochain nous irons à Passy. Si nous ne nous
y trouvons pas bien nous chercherons du côté de la porte Maillot. On
prend possession d’appartements encore tièdes de la présence de
ceux qui viennent de partir : on profite des clous qu’ils ont laissés
aux murs. Mais dans une petite ville on ignore ce que c’est que
déménager. Il faut des circonstances extraordinaires pour qu’une
famille change non pas même de quartier mais de maison.
Bourgeois et ouvriers ont chacun la leur où leurs habitudes se
promènent avec volupté comme des chats qui ronronnent en se
frottant aux boiseries familières. Chacune d’elles fut depuis des
générations le centre de beaucoup de vies humaines. Elles se
composent d’un rez-de-chaussée et d’un grenier qui n’est habité que
par des rats à qui de temps à autre une chauve-souris rend visite.
On n’y entend personne marcher au-dessus de soi. Entre les quatre
murs épais qu’ils soient lambrissés ou simplement crépis à la chaux,
la porte fermée on est chez soi. Pour avoir longtemps vécu dans une
de ces maisons Vaneau ne pouvait ressembler à ceux qui vont
d’hôtel en hôtel, de quartier en quartier. Il voulait trouver à Paris
l’illusion de la réalité de naguère : l’arbre de la cour le faisait penser
aux arbres. Il voulait que chaque journée de travail fût suivie du
repos de chaque soir, au coin du feu l’hiver, la belle saison venue les
fenêtres grandes ouvertes sur le ciel. Ici non plus il n’entendait
personne marcher au-dessus de sa tête.
Il ne regrettait point d’avoir épousé Jeanne.
Bien qu’elle ne connût que Paris elle avait le sens de la vie telle
que beaucoup de gens la mènent dans les petites villes. On en voit
trop à Paris qui au gré de leurs impressions se laissent ballotter
comme des barques qu’aucun filin ne retient à la terre ferme,
qu’aucune ancre n’empêche d’aller se briser sur les récifs. Jeanne
n’aimait ni les bals ni le théâtre, parce que l’on y dépense de l’argent
et que l’on se couche tard lorsque le lendemain il faut tout de même
être debout de bonne heure. Il s’était moqué d’elle, la traitant tout
bas de petite bourgeoise assoiffée de calculs ; à côté d’elle sans
presque lui parler il avait cueilli des fleurs dans les bois et parmi
l’herbe des champs. Avait-elle à cette époque remarqué son
indifférence ? Avait-elle soupçonné son intrigue avec Lucie ?
Maintenant il l’aimait de ce qu’elle lui recréât un intérieur qui
approchait de la vraie maison. Lucie avait disparu ? Tant mieux.
Vaneau eût été incapable de l’attendre indéfiniment chaque soir à
piétiner dans la boue, à marcher dans la poussière pendant des
heures, à perdre sa vie dehors. Des exaltations, des désespoirs dont
elle avait été la cause ou simplement le prétexte, il ne gardait qu’un
souvenir vague et doux. Elle n’était plus que le thème de ses
développements lyriques. Sa vie sentimentale il la considérait
comme à jamais close.
Mais parce que les nouveaux mariés ont du mal pour commencer
à joindre les deux bouts, il continuait de prendre ses repas au
restaurant familial. La vie de Jeanne n’avait pour ainsi dire pas
changé. Le matin elle l’accompagnait jusqu’à la porte de son bureau,
puis elle s’en allait comme par le passé copier les menus.
Car il travaillait maintenant dans un bureau. C’était ce qu’il avait
entendu dire lors de son arrivée à Paris :
 — Il y a des maisons de banque où l’on gagne quatre francs par
journée de travail.
Au bout du mois, quand par bonheur il n’y a pas eu plus de cinq
dimanches, cela fait un billet de cent francs que l’on ne doit qu’à ses
mérites personnels.
Il se souvenait aussi qu’autrefois son père lui avait dit :
— Tâche d’entrer dans un bureau. C’est là que l’on a sa vie
assurée. Mais ce n’est pas toujours facile : pour une place ils ont
cinquante demandes. Du temps où nous étions à Paris nous avons
connu et ton oncle en connaît aussi, des bacheliers, même des
licenciés qui meurent de faim et qui ne trouveraient pas à se faire
embaucher comme balayeurs de rues.
Vaneau n’était pas licencié. Pourtant avec ses quatre francs il se
chargeait de ne pas mourir de faim. Il était même fier de gagner cent
francs par mois. C’est un beau début.
La grande salle, carrelée de verre, où il travaillait, faisait partie
d’une maison dont les sous-sols bourrés de coffres-forts remplis de
titres descendent profond dans la terre, et dont les quatre ou cinq
étages reliés par des téléphones, des monte-charges, des
ascenseurs, s’élèvent haut vers le ciel. Il y coudoyait des hommes
vides d’humanité, aux âmes si flasques qu’elles devaient pendre au-
dedans d’eux-mêmes comme des ballons dégonflés. Le temps qu’ils
ne consacraient pas au travail, ils l’employaient à des bavardages de
vieilles commères ou, sournois, à s’espionner les uns les autres
comme des écoliers. Et ils avaient tant à cœur de se recroqueviller
dans la posture du parfait employé, ils avaient si peu conscience de
leur dignité personnelle qu’il lui semblait, quand il mangeait le pain
qu’il venait de gagner à côté d’eux, mâcher de la cendre.
Lorsque la nuit fut tout à fait venue, il alla dîner.
Tout de suite parce que depuis quelque temps il s’y attendait il
devina qu’il y avait du nouveau. Trop de fois il avait entendu Lavaud
répéter :
— Le quartier a fameusement changé ! Il y a quinze ans de huit
heures du matin à neuf heures du soir la salle ne désemplissait pour
ainsi dire pas.
La vie peu à peu s’en était allée ailleurs ; toutes les économies
avaient fondu. De luxueux « bouillons » s’ouvraient partout : parquet
luisant, tables uniformément recouvertes de nappes blanches,
portes à poignées de cuivre étincelantes, allées et venues des
garçons, présence rassurante du gérant avec sa serviette sur le
bras. Il n’y avait pas assez de patères pour recevoir cannes,
chapeaux, pardessus, manteaux. Lorsqu’il faisait beau, vers neuf
heures du soir Lavaud quittait son tablier blanc, passait un paletot, et
en pantoufles sortait prendre l’air. Une ou deux fois Vaneau n’avait
pu faire autrement que de l’accompagner. Seuls les restaurants du
quartier l’intéressaient ; il n’y avait pas à péricliter que le sien. Il
s’attardait à la lecture des menus encore affichés qu’il jugeait en
connaisseur. Mais quand il passait devant les « bouillons » remplis
de clients il ne pouvait se retenir de maugréer en haussant les
épaules. Que ne pouvait-il entrer, monter sur une chaise et crier :
— Ici vous dînez mal ! On vous y sert de la viande passée à
l’alcool et du vin de campêche. Venez donc goûter de ma cuisine
bourgeoise !
Il poursuivait son chemin le front bas. Plus rien n’allait. La saison
dans la forêt n’avait pas été bonne ; les bénéfices payaient à peine
les voyages. L’un après l’autre les quelques fidèles clients du soir
étaient partis.
Dans la salle déserte il allait et venait les mains derrière le dos,
rouge, suant, soufflant. Jeanne assise paraissait triste. Vaneau lui
demanda :
— Qu’est-ce qu’il y a donc ?
Elle n’eut pas la peine de répondre.
— Il y a, dit Lavaud, que cette après-midi j’ai revu le marchand de
fonds et que demain la bicoque sera vendue. Je ne veux plus
entendre parler de ce quartier de misère. Nous achèterons quelque
chose à Grenelle ; j’y servirai des ouvriers, des cochers. Ça sera
moins bien qu’ici. Mais je ne demande qu’à gagner ma vie.
Vaneau se taisant, il continua :