Democracy and the National Interest

Abstract

Nearly five years ago, early in his first campaign for the White House, Bill Clinton delivered a speech at Georgetown University about democracy as a factor in international life. Countries whose cit izens choose their leaders, he said, are more likely than those with other forms of government to be reliable partners in trade and diplo macy, and less likely to threaten the peace. As president, he has put that principle into practice by making the support of democracy a priority of his administrations diplomacy in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Even in straitened times he has pressed Congress to fund for eign assistance programs that promote elections and the rule of law, arguing that relatively modest expenditures today are an investment in the long-term interests of the United States. Two years ago President Clinton dispatched 21,000 American troops to Haiti as the vanguard of a multinational force that re stored an elected leader who had been deposed in a coup d'?tat. Earlier this year he urged Russia to go through with its first post Soviet presidential election, rejecting the view that cancellation would be better than a victory by the wrong candidate. And on September 14 the 53,000-strong, NATO-led military force in Bosnia made possible elections that, for all their imperfections and trou blesome aftermath, give that shattered land a better chance of achieving lasting peace within its borders and with its neighbors.

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