Regional multilateral regimes have become important instruments for promoting and defending democracy around the world. The novel nature of these regional instruments has generated a cottage industry in social science scholarship. Yet, none of these works compare the democracy promotion and defence regimes of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (AU). This article is designed to fill this gap. We argue that the unique constellation of actors that are members of each respective organization have reinforced two distinct democracy promotion and defence paths. The state-driven regime evolution characteristic of the Americas contrasts with Africa's expert-driven process of regime construction. The state-centric process of the OAS regime has bolstered a narrow interstate multilateralism that upholds traditional sovereign state prerogatives and minimizes the role for non-state actors in the promotion and defence of democracy in the Americas. The expert-driven process of AU's regime con...