Amerykańska polityka wspierania demokracji w Europie Wschodniej w latach 1989-1991
American Policy of Supporting Democracy in Eastern Europe in the Years 1989-1991

Summary/Abstract: The administration of George Bush Senior strove to influence the democratic changes in the countries of the disintegrating Eastern bloc in accordance with its own interests connected with building a new system of security created by Washington, based on Euroatlantic structures and the conception of political-economic transformation of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Propagation of democracy, a political conception initiated by Ronald Reagan, employed propaganda, economic and political instruments as well as means within the scope of foreign aid in order to support anti-communist opposition and interfere in processes of system reforms in the Eastern bloc. In the discussed period, a gradual evolution of American policy can be observed, consisting in a separation of policy toward the Soviet Union from relations with its hitherto satellites. This policy of “democratic differentiation” favored countries with the fastest rate of liberal transformations. Its instrument was foreign aid, provided among others on the basis of the Support for Eastern European Democracy Act (SEED) by agendas of the American administration – Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), National Fund for Democracy (NED) and non-government organizations.

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