Thursday 14 October 2021, 14.30-16.00 DIIS ∙ Danish Institute for International Studies Auditorium In Freedom on the Offensive: Human Rights, Democracy Promotion, and U.S. Interventionism in the late Cold War, William Michael Schmidli examines the emergence of democracy promotion as the centerpiece of the U.S. human rights agenda during the 1980s. Focusing on the multi-faceted conflict between the United States and Nicaragua, Schmidli examines how the Ronald Reagan administration used democracy promotion to rebuild the bi-partisan Cold War consensus in the United States that had fractured during the late 1960s and to justify aggressive U.S. policies abroad. By the late 1980s, this distinctive form of U.S. political and economic interventionism—pursued through civil society or proxy warfare and rooted in the neoliberal imperatives of U.S.-led globalization—had become a defining feature of U.S. foreign policy, with significant implications for post-Cold War international relations. DIIS has invited William Michael Schmidli to talk about the role of human rights and democracy promotion in US foreign policy through the prism of his forthcoming book Freedom on the Offensive. Speakers William Michael Schmidli, Assistant Professor, Leiden University Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS Programme - Introduction, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard - Book talk, William Michael Schmidli - Discussion with Q&A