ABSTRACT
Our political imagination has been restricted by our uncritical acceptance of our own rhetorical construction of democracy, a construction that privileges free-enterprise capitalism and republicanism. A number of recent commentators and analysts have in fact noted the possibility of an imperialist turn in the conceptualization and prosecution of US foreign policy. One could put forth the idea that the US could be construed as an 'informal empire', a recurrent term in the literature on American imperialism. The might of American power is so strong and extensive that it is impossible for any actor/agent of world politics not to feel threatened or beleaguered by the 'success story of the United States' as a nation-state. The modern 'system of territorial division', of territorializations, made national states the primary locus of political, economic and cultural organization. American exceptionalism and the manifest destiny image are at the heart of any understanding of US imperialism/empire.
