Does Forced Democratization Work

Abstract

Over the past seven decades, democratic powers, led by the United States, have attempted to bring about democracy through external military imposition. While research to date has generally pointed toward the conclusion that such efforts are often not successful in effecting full-fledged democracy, studies almost exclusively have focused on how interventions have affected institutional measures of democracy in target countries (as opposed to political rights or political competitiveness). In addition, such studies have not recognized that there is more than one way to denote a democratizing intervention. I find that, regardless of what measure of democracy one uses, attempts to force democracy are generally not successful. However, ”success” also depends to a degree upon how one chooses to define attempts at forced democratization. This research reinforces existing research, indicating that democratizing interventions are rarely found to result in healthy consolidated democracies over the long term.