The Soviet collapse bred a Western belief that democracy would spread worldwide

Evidence

These transitions and the collapse of the Soviet Union generated in the West, particularly in the United States, the belief that a global democratic revolution was underway and that in short order Western concepts of human rights and Western forms of political democracy would prevail throughout the world. Promoting this spread of democracy hence became a high priority goal for Westerners. It was endorsed by the Bush administration with Secretary of State James Baker declaring in April 1990 that “Beyond containment lies democracy” and that for the post-Cold War world “President Bush has defined our new mission to be the promotion and consolidation of democracy.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 514

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Political closure in the West masked persisting revolutionary energies globally — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 232; The Soviet collapse gave birth to an era of liberal teleology — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 155