Jan S. Adams. A Foreign Policy in Transition: Moscow's Retreat from Central America and The Caribbean, 1985-1992. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992. Notes, Index, 248 pp. - Wayne Smith (ed.). The Russians aren't Coming: New Soviet Policy in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992. Notes, Tables, Index. 195 pp.

1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-243
Author(s):  
Sharyl Cross
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Duke University ◽  
The Caribbean

Freedom Tide? Ideology, Politics, and the Origins of Democracy Promotion in U.S. Central America Policy, 1980–1984

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Dramatic Shift

The Reagan administration came to power in 1981 seeking to downplay Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Yet, by 1985 the administration had come to justify its policies towards Central America in the very same terms. This article examines the dramatic shift that occurred in policymaking toward Central America during Ronald Reagan's first term. Synthesizing existing accounts while drawing on new and recently declassified material, the article looks beyond rhetoric to the political, intellectual, and bureaucratic dynamics that conditioned the emergence of a Reaganite human rights policy. The article shows that events in El Salvador suggested to administration officials—and to Reagan himself—that support for free elections could serve as a means of shoring up legitimacy for embattled allies abroad, while defending the administration against vociferous human rights criticism at home. In the case of Nicaragua, democracy promotion helped to eschew hard decisions between foreign policy objectives. The history of the Reagan Doctrine's contentious roots provides a complex lens through which to evaluate subsequent U.S. attempts to foster democracy overseas.

16. US foreign policy in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Dunkerley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Latin America and the historical evolution of US relations with the region. It first considers the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny, which sought to contain European expansion and to justify that of the United States under an ethos of hemispherism, before discussing the projection of US power beyond its frontiers in the early twentieth century. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a less unilateral approach during the depression of the 1930s and an aggressively ideological approach in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. It also analyzes US policy towards the left in Central America, where armed conflict prevailed in the 1980s, and in South America, where the Washington Consensus brought an end to the anti-European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine by promoting globalization. Finally, it looks at the impact of the Cold War on US policy towards Latin America.

Soviet Interests in Latin America: New Opportunities and Old Constraints

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Raymond Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Caribbean Basin ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The U.S

The October 1983 crisis in Grenada left little doubt that the Soviet and Cuban presence had been expanding in the Caribbean basin. But the October crisis did not answer questions regarding the extent of their actual influence there, nor the direction it might take in the future, nor even what the most appropriate U.S. policy responses should be to that influence elsewhere in the region. Therefore, in the wake of the U.S. occupation of Grenada and the evidence it uncovered about the degree of Soviet and Cuban activity there, it is useful to examine the kind of situations that have encouraged the Soviets to expand their presence and/or influence in Latin America. At the same time, it equally is useful to examine the limitations or constraints on such an expanded presence or influence.Clearly, Soviet policy in Latin America has been the product of two conflicting forces or tendencies.

US Foreign Policy toward Latin America in the 19th Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Loveman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
American Policy ◽  
The 19Th Century

U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in the 19th century initially focused on excluding or limiting the military and economic influence of European powers, territorial expansion, and encouraging American commerce. These objectives were expressed in the No Transfer Principle (1811) and the Monroe Doctrine (1823). American policy was unilateralist (not isolationist); it gradually became more aggressive and interventionist as the idea of Manifest Destiny contributed to wars and military conflicts against indigenous peoples, France, Britain, Spain, and Mexico in the Western Hemisphere. Expansionist sentiments and U.S. domestic politics inspired annexationist impulses and filibuster expeditions to Mexico, Cuba, and parts of Central America. Civil war in the United States put a temporary halt to interventionism and imperial dreams in Latin America. From the 1870s until the end of the century, U.S. policy intensified efforts to establish political and military hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, including periodic naval interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, reaching even to Brazil in the 1890s. By the end of the century Secretary of State Richard Olney added the Olney Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (“Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition . . .”), and President Theodore Roosevelt contributed his own corollary in 1904 (“in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power”). American policy toward Latin America, at the turn of the century, explicitly justified unilateral intervention, military occupation, and transformation of sovereign states into political and economic protectorates in order to defend U.S. economic interests and an expanding concept of national security.

Rediscovering Democracy in Latin America

Worldview ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Paul E. Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
American Policy

It is not unlikely that within the next two years nearly every country in Latin America will be governed by an elected civilian regime. This might surprise most Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking about the region in terms of coup-prone military governments and repressive oligarchies. We are surprised too at the recent embrace of democracy in Latin America by the Reagan administration. Some of its leading representatives went about touting the virtues of authoritarian government; but the administration has found that it is good politics to promote democracy and free elections in Central America and the Caribbean— and politically impossible to resume aid to regimes with bad human rights records. In fact, “Project Democracy” is the latest buzzword of Reagan's Latin American policy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document