THE NOTION OF WRITING a book on the tendency of states to spread their ideologies first occurred to me some years ago. I was converting my doctoral dissertation into a book. The topic was the liberal peace, the proposition that liberal democracies do not fight one another. I noticed that, time and again in the nineteenth century, liberal elites saw themselves as playing a part in a historical drama about the spread of liberty and wanted their country to propel that spread. I noticed also that nonliberal elites—absolute monarchists, for example—saw themselves in similar terms, and felt bound to promote monarchy abroad. Sometimes these drives resulted in the forcible promotion of domestic regimes. I began reading about other times and places and finding similar processes at work. Regime promotion was everywhere. Or actually not everywhere, which made it even more interesting.
This book took far too long to write, in part because I had to sort out what was happening in all of this history, and in part because I found I needed a great deal of help. Much of that help came from the kindness and generosity of many who will go unnamed here. But I must mention a few. The book would still lie in unconnected bits on my hard drive if not for the generous support of Earhart Foundation of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the shepherding of Montgomery Brown; and of the Sesquicentennial Fund at the University of Virginia. I also thank the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at Virginia for support. Brian Job and the Centre of International Relations at the University of British Columbia have given me an intellectual home away from home each summer. Nuffield College and the Rothermere American Institute in Oxford hosted me for a highly productive half-year. I thank Andrew Hurrell for his sponsorship.
My colleagues at Virginia, in particular Dale Copeland, Herman Schwartz, David Jordan, Leonard Schoppa, and especially Jeffrey Legro, were interested in the project from early days and showed it by reading drafts and entertaining my often entangled ideas over lunch or impromptu chats. These, along with my colleague Gerard Alexander, kindly read an entire draft of the manuscript and, less kindly, subjected it to a three-hour scouring. In all sincerity I say that I look forward to returning the favor with each of them.
Other colleagues who have read all or part of previous drafts include Elizabeth Saunders, Todd Sechser (another Virginia colleague), Daniel Philpott, Mark Haas, Colin Dueck, Stephen Walt, Judd Owen, Stephen Krasner, Philip Potter, David Welch, Kenneth Schultz, Mira Sucharov, Charles Doran, Jorge Benitez, Randall Schweller, and David Dessler. I presented portions of the book in various stages at colloquia at the Center for International Studies at Princeton; the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard; the Mershon Center at Ohio State University; the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford; and the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. I am grateful to the colleagues and graduate students at each of these places for their trenchant critiques.
I had research help from Rachel Vanderhill and David Kearn. Without Chris Gist of the Scholar’s Lab at the University of Virginia Library, there would be no map 7.1. For advice along the way—often disruptive, always productive—I thank Peter Katzenstein, Josef Joffe, Minxin Pei, Gregory Gause, Kenneth Schultz, Audrey Kurth Cronin, Joseph Nye, Alexander Wendt, Ted Hopf, Desmond King, James Davison Hunter, Andrew Hurrell, Charles Lipson, John Ikenberry, John Mearsheimer, Robert Pape, Charles Glaser, and Robert Keohane.
Portions of chapter 1 and the appendix appeared in “The Foreign Imposition of Domestic Institutions,” International Organization 56 (2002), 375-409. I thank MIT Press for permission to re-use those portions. Preparing that paper for publication was crucial to the development of this book, and I thank the journal’s editors at the time, Peter Gourevitch and David Lake, for combining relentless rigor with confidence in the project. Michael Barnett published in Foreign Policy a helpful commentary on that article. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for Princeton University Press, one of whom has revealed himself to be Daniel Nexon. Dan brought to bear his formidable learning in social theory and history to make the book better. Chuck Myers at the Press has been endlessly patient and encouraging, and copyeditor Karen Verde provided superb editorial guidance. Needless to say, none of the aforementioned bear any responsibility for any errors of fact or reasoning in the book.
My long-suffering family members deserve my greatest thanks. My dear mother Pat Owen would be justified in thinking my laptop computer a strange bodily appendage. Tricia and Mark Palardy, Judd and Marion Owen, and Phil Hill and the Vancouver clan are doubtless relieved that now, when they ask me about what I am working on, I am able to talk about something other than this book. My children, Malloy, Frances, and Alice, have extended me the singular privilege of watching and helping them grow during the years of this project’s gestation. A book may be an author’s child, but this book is nothing beside these three living, running, talking, brilliant marvels who bring me such joy. My largest debt, and the one I feel most keenly, is to my wife Trish, to whom I dedicate this book. She is both anchor and breeze, a woman better than I deserve, lovely, amazing, and essential.