Debating Democracy in the United States: Democracy as Foreign Policy Tool during the Presidency of J. Biden

In times of a disseminated sense of uncertainty, intense polarization and democratic discontent in multiple world countries, the upsurge of populism, and the democratic model being under stress, the current president of the United States made the defence of the democratic model as a centrepiece of his foreign policy agenda. Joe Biden, who defined democracy as “something more than a form of government, as a way of seeing the world and the rule of the people," warned that democracy was "in peril" in the United States and around the world “in the face of autocratic forces“, and urged collective action in face of “sustained and alarming challenges to democracy“. This paper examines how democracy is conceptualized in the Biden administration’s foreign policy. What concept of democracy the Biden administration constructs? What role for democracy has been foreseen in the administration’s foreign policy (in terms of goals, instruments, and challenges)? How does the administration perceive the idea of democratic resilience and how does it plan to implement it? What role for democratic resilience is planned in autocratic regimes’ containment strategy? What are the main factors determining the position of the US? What risks and opportunities does this idea present for the transatlantic community? These are the questions the paper aims to address.