ABSTRACT
This is the first of two chapters that take the analysis to a particular case of democracy promotion, namely the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Egypt. Its goal is to trace the fate and manifestation of the basic premises in a country in which U.S. democracy promotion has been challenged quite substantially over the past decades. This chapter, after giving a brief overview of the U.S.-Egypt bilateral relationship, discusses at length the U.S. democracy promotion policy in Egypt under the Clinton and Bush presidencies; the following chapter does the same for the Obama administration. The analysis in these chapters is based on a content analysis of relevant statements by White House and State Department officials as well as on the extant literature of the U.S. democracy promotion in Egypt. The goal is an assessment of the manifestation or negation of the basic premises in this specific case against the background of all relevant policy factors, including political developments in Egypt, (other) U.S. interests in the region, and domestic and bureaucratic challenges within the U.S.
