Promoting Human Rights and Democracy in the Developing World: U.S. Rhetoric versus U.S. Arms Exports

Abstract

Scholars disagree about the determinants of U.S. foreign policy instruments. According to realpolitik, security interests determine the outcome of U.S. decisions on arms transfers. Neo-liberals counter that respect for human rights and democratic governance are important in U.S. foreign policy. The objective of this study is to assess whether human rights and democracy are significant determinants in the decision to transfer arms abroad. Focusing on U.S. arms exports to developing countries for the years 1990 through 1994, 1 use modified Heckman model to take into account two-stage decision-making process. The findings indicate that in the initial decisionmaking stage, human rights and democracy are important determinants of the eligibility of countries to receive arms. In the second stage, democracy is significant, though human rights no longer affect the decision on the amount of arms to be transferred. any view the coming of the twenty-first century as a critical turning point in history wherein Western democracies have ( an opportunity to shape the political nature of our (Diamond 1992, 27). Along these lines, the United States endorsed the promotion of liberal democracy as cornerstone of its foreign policy. Thus, the Bush administration called for new world order characterized by freedom and justice, and the Clinton administration sought to enlarge the global democratic community. To what extent are the instruments of U.S. foreign policy used in manner consistent with proliberalization rhetoric? I address this question by exaimining the degree to which U.S. practices on arms exports mirror its professed concern with human rights and democracy. If this rhetoric is sincere, the conditions of human rights and democracy in recipient countries should be related to patterns of U.S. arms transfers abroad. This intent is embodied in legislation such as the proposed Code of Conduct that would constrain the export of U.S. arms to those countries that, among other things, respect human rights and have democratic form of government. Such efforts are based on the belief that the U.S. responsibility to protect human rights, promote democracy, and take the lead in reducing regional arms races throughout the world. They are also linked to the premise that since democracies do not go to war with each other (ONeal et al. 1996; Maoz and Russett 1993), exporting arms only to democracies reduces the likelihood of the boomerang effect.' Furthermore, as U.S. funds are used to subsidize many arms sales through foreign aid and off-set agreements (Neuman 1985), policymakers find it harder publicly to justify such arrangements when the recipient abuses human rights or is nondemocratic. Critics contend that these goals are disregarded in practice. In the postCold War period, the United States has subverted human rights to commercial concerns (Wheat 1995, 16; see also Hartung 1995). In period