American Democratic Interventionism: Romancing the Iconic Woodrow Wilson

Abstract

There is an American foreign policy tradition in respect to military interventions in the Third World, which validates the importance of democratic ideals as central to the success of the policy. Woodrow Wilson is the founding father of this tradition. While the normative commitments of Wilson made sense in Victorian America and can probably be considered innovative for his day, the manifest lack of success in transferring democracy through military intervention leads us to question the character of Wilson's interventions and the ideals that motivated them. This essay will consider the content of Wilson's democratic theory and its integration into ideals of national mission and destiny; how this became the philosophical basis for policies of military intervention; the assessments offered by historians of the success of this policy; and the role of racial paternalism in legitimating the policy at the time. In a contemporary respect, we are left with the question of whether we want such a philosophy of democratic interventionism to be the basis for transferring democratic values and practices to Third World countries today.

Latin America and the liberal international order: an agenda for research

“…69 Wilson's interventions were justified by democratic and progressive ideals, but were equally marked by racial paternalism, notably in the long, brutal occupation of Haiti. 70 In many respects, the First World War brought Latin America more deeply into the 'global' than ever before. 76 The US shirked the global postwar system its president had helped design, but Latin America largely embraced it.…”

ISIS and the Sectarian Political Ontology: Radical Islam, Violent Jihadism and the Claims for Revival of the Caliphate

“…A post-Cold-War foreign policy ideal, rooted in the normative Wilsonian tradition of Victorian America, now appeared as a miscalculated romantic fascination. Iraq’s misadventure was also considered as a Wilsonian nightmare (Anthony, 2008, p. 240). A sustained sectarian political unrest that continues till date, tend to provide credence to this phenomenon.…”