Democracy Promotion as Foreign Policy ─ Temporal othering in international relations

This book looks at democracy promotion as a form of foreign policy. Elliot asks whydemocracy was seen to be the answer to the 7/7 bombings in London, and why it should be promoted not in Britain, but in Pakistan? This book provides a detailed answer to these questions, examining the logic and the modes of thinking that made such a response possible. It also shows why they matter for the way democracy is thought about and understood in Britain and globally.

The author looks at the influential distinction made between Foreign Policy, as conventionally understood, and foreign policy as the complex of practices that constitutes objectsas foreign in the first place. First, she shows the importance of modes of "temporal othering" by examining the temporal distinctions that constitute a British, democratic, national identity by dint of positing an "other" that is barbaric, alien, despotic, violent and – most importantly – backward. Second, she argues that it is possible to narrate alternative versions of history, demonstrating that teleology itself isn’t the driving force of history, but rather that a teleological understanding of history emerges from the messiness of historical events. She shows that the version of history that currently pervades practices of thought about British identity and democracy promotion is contestable and therefore it might be possible to think, act and live differently.

Cathy Elliott is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University College London. She previously worked as a development manager in Pakistan. Her research interests include poststructural international relations; time, temporality and history; politics and aesthetics and feminism and gender.