Freedom on the offensive

Watch the recording of the seminar here 
 

In Freedom on the Offensive: Human Rights, Democracy Promotion, and U.S. Interventionism in the late Cold War, William Michael Schmidli examines the emergence of democracy promotion as the centerpiece of the U.S. human rights agenda during the 1980s. Focusing on the multi-faceted conflict between the United States and Nicaragua, Schmidli examines how the Ronald Reagan administration used democracy promotion to rebuild the bi-partisan Cold War consensus in the United States that had fractured during the late 1960s and to justify aggressive U.S. policies abroad. By the late 1980s, this distinctive form of U.S. political and economic interventionism—pursued through civil society or proxy warfare and rooted in the neoliberal imperatives of U.S.-led globalization—had become a defining feature of U.S. foreign policy, with significant implications for post-Cold War international relations.

DIIS has invited William Michael Schmidli to talk about the role of human rights and democracy promotion in US foreign policy through the prism of his forthcoming book Freedom on the Offensive.

Speakers
William Michael Schmidli, Assistant Professor, Leiden University
Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS

Programme
14.30-14.40     Introduction, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard

14.40-15.20     Book talk, William Michael Schmidli

15.20-16.00     Discussion with Q&A

The seminar was recorded on Thursday 14 October 2021, 14.30-16.00 at DIIS.