| Abstract [eng] |
Democratization of the South-East Asia in the U.S. Foreign Policy: the Cases of Vietnam and Burma Since the presidency of G. W. Bush has made many politicians and political researchers doubt about the U.S. real intentions in spreading democracy and its values, this study attempts to evaluate democracy support policies in Vietnam and Myanmar under Barack Obama. This study seeks to answer the question if the policy of democracy support under Obama was sincere, based upon the core democratic values and stayed unaffected by other U.S. foreign policy goals, like military security and economic gains. Many researchers have proven, that the ties between the policy of democratic support, as a virtue, and economic and security goals have not always been visible. That means that U.S. believes in the need to spread democracy not only to ensure the achievement of its own pragmatic goals, but to help other people to live under democratic conditions, which seems to be universal norm until today. The continuation on financing developmental programs in Vietnam and Myanmar, strong verbal support (in some cases - criticism), impartiality show us that the spread of democracy must not be seen only as a disguise to achieve hard power gains, but rather as a still important set of values in their foreign policy. This study proves that the spread of democracy in the U.S. foreign policy must not be seen as a way to simply strengthen its military and economic might, but should be considered as an idealistic way to help other countries to pull through the poverty, deprivation and authoritarian regimes. Hence we may conclude that this study denies popular thought that the spread of democracy in the United States foreign policy is a cover-up for more important security and economic issues. Of course, U.S. has major economic and security interests in Vietnam and Myanmar, but that does not mean that those matters overrun the importance of democracy. |
