Intervention and Regime Change

Regime promotion constitutes a distinct category of foreign intervention that includes any effort by an intervening state or coalition to create, preserve, or alter political institutions or governments within a target state. Although a common tool of statecraft, regime promotion has received relatively little scholarly attention. We discuss foundational and cutting-edge research that addresses three questions: What causes states or governments to try to change or preserve domestic institutions of other sovereign states? What modes or tools of statecraft do they employ? What are the consequences for the intervening power, the target state, or the international system? We conclude with six recommendations for advancing regime promotion research: (i) expand research beyond its United States and great-power focus to consider how regional actors and small states employ regime promotion; (ii) conduct comparative studies of forcible regime promotions with non-forcible and covert means; (iii) isolate the fundamental motivations—domestic and/or systemic—that propel states to attempt regime promotion despite significant costs and risks; (iv) examine further the role of regime-type in regime promotion; (v) increase research into the consequences of regime promotion by emphasizing long-term efficacy as well as the comparative success of non-democratic interveners and democracy promoters; and (vi) focus additional attention on the relation of regime promotion to international hegemony or hierarchy. Keywords: intervention; regime promotion; regime change; democratization; sovereignty; hegemony; US foreign policy; hierarchy