Bush's Freedom Agenda: Ideology and the Democratization of the Middle East

Abstract

To combat terrorism the Bush administration has asserted the need to reject the status quo in the Middle East and North Africa. Consequently the United States has pursued the freedom agenda, in the belief that a liberal grand strategy serves America's national interest. Yet this policy is based on a highly ideological justification, which is rationalized by appeals to hegemonic stability theory, democratic peace theory, neoliberal economics, and modernization thesis, the product of which is a policy of conservative radicalism that has increasingly been undermined because of the administration's ideological blind-spots and structural restraints in US-MENA relations.

Keywords:

• Conservative Radicalism
• Democracy Promotion
• Freedom Agenda
• Ideology
• Liberal Grand Strategy
• Neoliberalism
• War on Terror

Notes

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