| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Through an examination of American policy toward Germany during late 1918 to 1919, this article challenges widely held ideas about the attitudes of American President Woodrow Wilson toward democracy promotion. Scholars typically have seen in Wilson's foreign policy the antecedents of several subsequent U.S. presidents' policies of democracy promotion and democratic interventionism. This study contends that at least during the second half of Wilson's presidency, however, Wilson did not regard it as appropriate for the United States to intervene in the internal political affairs of other nations to promote democracy. While he hoped that postwar Germany would come to embrace democracy, he believed that the Germans would have to find democracy on their own. Despite the fact that those American diplomatic officials who were most familiar with the situation in Germany continually urged a more active U.S. policy to promote democracy there, Wilson remained deeply skeptical of the new German government and adhered firmly to the view that the United States should refrain from attempting to influence Germany's internal political affairs.
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