A lot of countries that converted to democracy did this because their populations looked up to US and wanted to have better lief.
You also put pressure on other countries when they claim are democratic but fail to do this in practice (which is the case of Belarus or Poland where I live).
US does this actively and frequently in many forms, by voicing "concerns" or putting embargoes on countries that break their own rules.
Obviously, that pressure is much less effective when you do same things you try to pressure other countries to not do.
Case in point, a system that does not care about rights of their inhabitants is usually much more effective at running large scale projects. For example, China just deciding to shut down everybody in their houses in Wuhan and shoot if you don't comply. And just like that they got their pandemic under control.
> One of the reasons strongmen rise to power in third world countries is as a reaction to imperialism
No, they rise because they can.
And not just in third world countries. Germany was definitely not a third world country when it allowed Hitler to rise and start a global war. What about Putin?
We see these guys mostly in third world countries now mainly because without democracy it is difficult to keep up with democracies without some special situation (like Saudi Arabia being gifted with huge oil reserves).
In non-democracies normal people have trouble preserving their wealth over long periods of time. You need to be "in favours" of the ruling entity to be wealthy and the wealth vanishes if you fall out of it.
Democracies are on the other hand, by definition, people ruling themselves, and this should in theory mean a lot of focus is on personal security and freedom. This should mean it is safer to conduct business over long periods of time, accumulate wealth and generally contribute to GDP.
I am the first one to be vocal of US imperialism, but you can't deny that it is US influence that caused several modern countries to be democratic.
But I feel after the 1960's the US has slowly lost that ideal, and the visionary leaders (Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt or Eisenhower) are no longer anywhere to be found (whether the electorate don't tolerate or desire them I'm not sure).
Both the Japanese and Korean antidemocratic moves took place in that pre 1960 era for example.
Really?
Do you really think any international body would hold Saudi Arabia, China to account?
He who holds the purse, makes the rules. And they hold a pretty big purse.
Of course China and KSA would never join. And that would give other countries a clear and objective criterion to apply sanctions and international pressure.
Instead, judging what sanction a country deserves is an arbitrary exercise of executive power.
North Korea, China, KSA, are easy cases, but what do you know of Moldova? Of Hungary? Of Malaysia? Knowing that a country is held to some international standards judged independently would be a huge progress for human rights globally.
You could maybe ask the other 26 nations how they might see things?
Remember the EU is not just 1 lady who had a bad daddy. And her tenure is not forever.
The same is also true of the US, every 4 years the whole country gets to vote for either the worst of their instincts, or for the person that embodies a higher ideal. So a lot can change over the next few decades.
I'm with C. Hitchens, a short term pessimist, but a long term optimist :)
One of the things that got her famous in Germany was her persistent lying and schemeing, including "think of the children", including showing actual child porn to journalists[0], to get her internet censorship and surveillance scheme passed. Definitely her father's footsteps.
[0] https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/blockade-illegaler-sites...
Well yes she is a pretty bad person, remember McKinsey? Internet Censor at ISP level? Trying to buy Drones with weapons on board? The probably buy d dissertation for her Dr. Med?
Could you tell me, where to find more information about this? Thanks!
Not saying she should be responsible for what her father did, but it is noteworthy because her career was mostly being his daughter.
ps. What most people mean when they say "democracy" is "IMF conditionalities", et similar.
People have been used to so many cynicism that they have forgotten that countries doing the good thing is a possibility.
It never was. If we want to talk about the powerful being held to account by the international community, realise that at some point that means canvassing the idea of invading China/India/the United States/Europe when they get out of line. That isn't an option. That would potentially reduce big chunks of the world to sand and anything less can't constrain the powerful. WWII alone levelled an entire continent, and that was with primitive weaponry compared to what is available now.
Trade sanctions aren't effective at changing behaviour and it isn't obvious if they would do more good or more harm if deployed against a superpower. Note that most superpowers' economic problems were due to internal not external policy.
There we were, in a world where USSR had collapsed, China not risen yet, with a USA as the uncontested dominant power. It has the unique chance in history to steer the world in one direction or the other.
Building international legal standards, multi-lateral cooperation, ensuring that whoever had the most power at one point would be limited by the world community, was something within US reach, and was a realistic hope. As a bonus, the first thing the community would work on would be tackling the climate change, as it was an obvious field where every country of planet earth had a common interest.
Instead, because of a few hundred "miscounted" votes in Florida, the US president was a zealous anti-intellectual evangelist, who decided that US interests trumps human rights, that denying climate change was a respectable political stance, and instead of spending a mountain of dollars on research, energy transition, diseases eradication, social net improvements, he spent it on invading 2 countries despite experts warning that it would not solve any problem.