The Bush Doctrine, the War on Terror, and American promotion of democracy in the Middle East: The cases of Egypt and Yemen

Unlike the previous U.S. Administrations, the Bush Administration believes that national security and promoting democracy go hand-in-hand. In arguing that success in the war on terror demands democratic reform in the Middle East, Bush broke a long-standing division between Realism (which stresses security) and Liberalism (which posits that institutional change can enhance security in the long term). Bush, in other words, proposed that security and democracy are positive sum and increases in democracy promotion will yield positive security gains. Neoconservatives believed that the major cause of terror is the lack of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Thus in the Bush era U.S. foreign policy aims to promote democracy in the region as a solution to terrorist activities against the United States and the West. Clearly, government officials in the Bush Administration believed that democracy promotion could guarantee security concerns of the United States. This dissertation tries to answer the questions: did the Bush Administration succeed in pursuing both security and democracy through its War on Terror policy, or did it end up pursuing security at the expense of democracy? This dissertation examines in detail statements by the Bush Administration about Democracy Promotion, including the ways in which neoconservatives treated democracy post-9/11. This will contain explicit budgetary and program information.