Promoting Polyarchy is an exciting, detailed, and controversial work on the apparent change in US foreign policy from supporting dictatorships to an 'open' promotion of 'democratic' regimes. William I. Robinson argues that behind the façade of 'democracy promotion', the policy is designed more to retain the elite-based and undemocratic status quo of Third World countries than to encourage mass aspirations for democratization. He supports this challenging argument with a wealth of information garnered from field work and hitherto unpublished government documents, and assembled in case studies of the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua, Haiti, South Africa, and the former Soviet Bloc. With its combination of theoretical and historical analysis, empirical argument, and bold claims, Promoting Polyarchy is an essential book for anyone concerned with democracy, globalization and international affairs.

Winner of the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the political Economy of the World Section of the American Sociological Association

‘In Promoting Polyarchy William Robinson, building on a formidable array of local knowledge and theoretical reflection, makes the bold argument that democracy promotion in US foreign policy is best explained in terms of the pluralist idea of polyarchy and that this restricted conception of democracy serves the interests of an increasingly transnational elite. ... The logic of the analysis and the power of his case studies represent a challenge that complacent pluralists and those sceptical of globalization should not ignore.’

Leslie Sklair - The London School of Economics and Political Science

‘This book provides a sobering look at what it means to say the US is promoting democracy throughout the world. It is a good antidote to much academic pap.’

Immanuel Wallerstein