> People in many third-world countries have been fed the line that democracy is the correct form of government. This isn't accidental: the soft power of Hollywood and the myth of American exceptionalism have been powerful incentives to have faith in the ability of democratic institutions to improve lives
American exceptionalism is largely, in America, an excuse for advocating against the value of pursuing liberal democracy in the developing world as general policy; it's intimately tied into the effort to export neoliberal economics for the benefit of US I terests with less concern for democracy, especially Western-style liberal democracy.
The idea that US success is attributable to replicable social technologies like liberal democracy (or even liberal economics; exceptionalists seek exporting liberal economics as a way of extending US economic power on the view that US hegemony is a moral imperative, and that people around the world benefit from US power because other countries are fundamentally unable to replace the US as leaders) is opposed to exceptionalism.
American exceptionalism is largely, in America, an excuse for advocating against the value of pursuing liberal democracy in the developing world as general policy; it's intimately tied into the effort to export neoliberal economics for the benefit of US I terests with less concern for democracy, especially Western-style liberal democracy.
The idea that US success is attributable to replicable social technologies like liberal democracy (or even liberal economics; exceptionalists seek exporting liberal economics as a way of extending US economic power on the view that US hegemony is a moral imperative, and that people around the world benefit from US power because other countries are fundamentally unable to replace the US as leaders) is opposed to exceptionalism.