Suchergebnisse

During the ideological and economic competition of the Cold War, development and foreign aid had become important mechanisms to exhibit the superiority of each economic system, and to attempt to tie recipient countries to either bloc. This strategic implementation of soft power was initially prevalent with regards to the newly independent countries in Africa and South East Asia during the 1950s and the 1960s. The influence of modernization theory and the previous efforts of the Eisenhower administration to strengthen diplomatic relations with Latin America coupled with the peril of communist expansion drove the newly-elected Kennedy administration to launch the Alliance for Progress (AFP) in 1961. This article is organized in three sections, whereby the first chapter examines the factors for the amount of aid given to Bolivia; the second chapter will examine the factors for Colombia; the third chapter will examine the factors for the Venezuelan case This article hopes to shed new light on this policy, by providing a more nuanced explanation for the factors and context for why these three countries received the aid they did, rather than just simply stating 'to contain communism,' as has been discussed in the existing literature. Containing communism, and preventing another Cuba, was at the epicentre of the AFP policy – however, as this article hopes to illustrate the mechanism and understanding for containing it differed depending on each country. By providing an in-depth analysis of the local context, it will show that the allocation of aid was never solely determined by one factor. Instead, the AFP policy was driven by an understanding of perceived gains (that being, strengthening social reforms to make the country a showcase for progressive democracy and act as a bulwark against communism) and perceived losses (that being, preventing another Cuba and communist revolution).