Session 24: America-cracy

Ido Oren in his piece The Subjectivity of the Democratic Peace puts forth the argument that the democratic peace theory might not be so value free. This theory proposed almost seems to be proposed by the Americans for the Americans to make everyone into an American. If you don’t fit into the mould of America or what it means to be the United States of America, you’re not democratic. Is history repeating itself? The stress on the spread of democracies because has an imperialistic tinge to it. 

American cultural and social imperialism is self evident with the increase in food chains like McDonalds all over the world as well as the hegemony it has over media and films. (Hollywood) If you’re not like-America; you’re inferior, barbaric and need to be liberated by the US of A. Rings a bell, doesn’t it? What I particularly appreciated about Ido Oren is how he used historical accounts like that of Germany to show how America’s perception of the state transformed according to what it’s interests were at a particular time. Woodrow Wilson had first declared Germany the epitome of what a state should be however as soon as Germany diverged slightly from the “American” ideals. It was branded as an evil nation.

 As Ido Oren concluded “The American view of a democratic or non-democratic identity of [a state]...will continue to depend on peaceful of their foreign policy more than their peaceful policies will depend on their democratic identity.” For Ido Oren, the American policy of democratization does not have “solid historical foundations.” But if the narrative is manipulated well I’m sure these historical foundations will solidify themselves.