US democracy promotion and energy security after 9/11

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to find out whether the US is also genuinely committed to promote democracy in those countries on which the US has oil dependency or does the US energy security interest eclipse its foreign policy principle of democracy promotion abroad after 9/11. The hypothesis of this research is that the US is less interested in promoting democracy in those countries on which the US has higher oil-dependency. Materialist theory of democracy promotion is used to drive this hypothesis. Two statistical methods are employed, i.e. (1) hypothesis testing by using t-test and (2) regression, to estimate the variation of the USAID democracy assistance in those countries on which the US has higher oil dependency compared with those countries on which the US has less or no oil dependency. The findings of this thesis show that the USAID spends, on average, less funding for democracy-related programmes in those countries on which the US has higher oil-dependency and vice versa. These results indicate that, although the US prioritized its democracy promotion after 9/11 in order to tackle the problem of iv terrorism, the US energy security remains the prime concern for which the US compromises on its foreign policy principle of democracy promotion abroad.