In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbor, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped. This perception of inferiority was apparent from the beginning. John Quincy Adams, who first established diplomatic relations with Latin America, believed that Hispanics were lazy, dirty, nasty...a parcel of hogs. In the early nineteenth century, ex-President John Adams declared that any effort to implant democracy in Latin America was as absurd as similar plans would be to establish democracies among the birds, beasts, and fishes. Drawing on extraordinarily rich archival sources, Schoultz, one of the country's foremost Latin America scholars, shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries. We have combined self-interest with a civilizing mission--a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects. William Howard Taft felt the way to accomplish this task was to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace, while in 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles warned that the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children. Schoultz shows that the policies pursued reflected these deeply held convictions. While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America. Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbors as equals can it anticipate a constructive hemispheric alliance.
This work dissects the varied impacts of a decade of the central aid policy. It examines the impacts on the environment, on the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers, and on the sovereignty of elected governments. An anatomy of failure, of a policy gamble run amock, this is a cautionary tale.
In this remarkable and engaging book, William LeoGrande offers the first comprehensive history of U.S. foreign policy toward Central America in the waning years of the Cold War. From the overthrow of the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua and the outbreak of El Salvador's civil war in the late 1970s to the final regional peace settlements negotiated a decade later, he chronicles the dramatic struggles--in Washington and Central America--that shaped the region's destiny. For good or ill, LeoGrande argues, Central America's fate hinged on decisions that were subject to intense struggles among, and within, Congress, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House--decisions over which Central Americans themselves had little influence. Like the domestic turmoil unleashed by Vietnam, he says, the struggle over Central America was so divisive that it damaged the fabric of democratic politics at home. It inflamed the tug-of-war between Congress and the executive branch over control of foreign policy and ultimately led to the Iran-contra affair, the nation's most serious political crisis since Watergate.
Central America has received renewed attention from U.S. policymakers over the past few years as the region has become a major transit corridor for illicit drugs and a significant source of irregular migration to the United States. These narcotics and migrant flows are the latest symptoms of deep-rooted challenges in several countries in the region, including widespread insecurity, fragile political and judicial systems, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. Although the Obama Administration and governments in the region launched new initiatives designed to improve conditions in Central America, the future of those efforts will depend on the decisions of the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America The Obama Administration determined it was in the national security interests of the United States to work with Central American governments to address conditions in the region. Accordingly, the Obama Administration launched a new, whole-of-government U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America. The new strategy takes a broader and more comprehensive approach than previous U.S. initiatives in the region and is based on the premise that efforts to promote prosperity, improve security, and strengthen governance are mutually reinforcing and of equal importance. The new strategy focuses primarily on the "northern triangle" countries of Central America-El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras-which face the greatest challenges. Nevertheless, it also provides an overarching framework for U.S. engagement with the other countries in the region: Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. The new U.S. strategy and the northern triangle governments' Alliance for Prosperity initiative have similar objectives and fund complementary efforts; however, they have prioritized different activities. Initial Funding and Conditions Congress has appropriated $1.4 billion to begin implementing the new Central America strategy, dividing the funds relatively equally among efforts to promote prosperity, strengthen governance, and improve security. This figure includes $750 million appropriated in FY2016 and $655 million appropriated in FY2017 (through P.L. 114-113 and P.L. 115-31, respectively). Congress placed strict conditions on the aid, requiring the northern triangle governments to address a range of concerns, including border security, corruption, and human rights, to receive assistance. As a result of those legislative requirements, delays in the budget process, and congressional holds, most of the FY2016 funding did not begin to be delivered to Central America until early 2017. The State Department has yet to certify that any of the northern triangle countries have met the legislative requirements for FY2017. Future Appropriations and Other Policy Issues Congress is now considering President Trump's FY2018 budget request, which would cut funding for the Central America strategy by $195 million, or 30%, compared to the FY2017 estimate. As Congress deliberates on the future of the Central America strategy, it may examine a number of policy issues. These issues include the funding levels and strategy necessary to meet U.S. objectives; the extent to which Central American governments are demonstrating the political will to undertake domestic reforms; the utility of the conditions placed on assistance to Central America; and the potential implications of changes to U.S. immigration, trade, and drug control policies for U.S. objectives in the region.
A comprehensive analysis of the U.S. Central America peace movement, Resisting Reagan explains why more than one hundred thousand U.S. citizens marched in the streets, illegally housed refugees, traveled to Central American war zones, committed civil disobedience, and hounded their political representatives to contest the Reagan administration's policy of sponsoring wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Focusing on the movement's three most important national campaigns—Witness for Peace, Sanctuary, and the Pledge of Resistance—this book demonstrates the centrality of morality as a political motivator, highlights the importance of political opportunities in movement outcomes, and examines the social structuring of insurgent consciousness. Based on extensive surveys, interviews, and research, Resisting Reagan makes significant contributions to our understanding of the formation of individual activist identities, of national movement dynamics, and of religious resources for political activism.
The fifth edition of Understanding Central America explains how domestic and global political and economic forces have shaped rebellion and regime change in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. John A. Booth, Christine J. Wade, and Thomas W. Walker explore the origins and development of the region's political conflicts and its efforts to resolve them. Covering the region's political and economic development from the early 1800s onward, the authors provide a background for understanding Central America's rebellion and regime change of the past forty years. This revised edition brings the Central American story up to date, with special emphasis on globalization, evolving public opinion, progress toward democratic consolidation, and the relationship between Central America and the United States under the Obama administration, and includes analysis of the 2009 Honduran coup d'etat. A useful introduction to the region and a model for how to convey its complexities in language readers will comprehend, Understanding Central America stands out as a must-have resource.
Central America faces significant security challenges. Criminal threats, fragile political and judicial systems, and social hardships such as poverty and unemployment contribute to widespread insecurity in the region. Consequently, improving security conditions in these countries is a difficult, multifaceted endeavor. Because U.S. drug demand contributes to regional security challenges and the consequences of citizen insecurity in Central America are potentially far-reaching, the U.S. is collaborating with countries in the region to implement and refine security efforts. Contents of this report: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: Scope of the Problem: Underlying Societal Conditions; Structural Weaknesses in Governance; Criminal Threats; (3) Efforts within Central America; (4) U.S. Policy: Background on Assistance to Central America; Central America Regional Security Initiative; (5) Additional Issues for Congressional Consideration: Funding Issues; Human Rights Concerns; Relation to Other U.S. Government Policies; (6) Outlook. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
This is the first comprehensive, even-handed examination of U.S. policy in Latin America during the Reagan era. Drawing on interviews with U.S. officials and his own perspective as a former State Department lawyer, Thomas Carothers sheds new light on the much-discussed U.S. involvements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama and turns up varied and often unexpected findings in less-studied countries such as Bolivia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, and Chile. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.
