Obama’s sustainable democracy promotion: assessing 7 years of policy performance

Abstract

A decade ago, presidential candidate Barack Obama called for “sustainable democracy promotion” and pledged to double US investment on the intersection of development and democracy. This article, a follow-up on a similar one published early in the Obama Administration, looks at the rhetoric, policies, initiatives, spending, and outcomes of the Obama Administration’s democracy promotion efforts, with a special focus on the greater Middle East following Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech extolling democracy and democratic institutions. The data suggest that despite the rhetoric, few new programs were initiated, some existing programs were allowed to wither and that the status of the world is less free and less democratic than it was at the beginning of the Obama presidency.