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The role of human rights in United States policy toward Latin America is the subject of this study. It covers the early sixties to 1980, a period when humanitarian values came to play an important role in determining United States foreign policy. The author is concerned both with explaining why these values came to impinge on government decision making and how internal bureaucratic processes affected the specific content of United States policy. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
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.
"The most balanced and sophisticated account currently available of U.S. policy toward Latin America in the 1980s, and of the complexities, tensions and difficulties inherent in making democratization in a foreign policy objective. A 'must read.'"--Ambassador Viron P. Vaky, former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs "The most balanced and sophisticated account currently available of U.S. policy toward Latin America in the 1980s, and of the complexities, tensions and difficulties inherent in making democratization in a foreign policy objective. A 'must read.'"--Ambassador Viron P. Vaky, former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
Recent U.S. military involvement in Central America has sparked heated debate over U.S. policy in the region. To informed observers of U.S.-Latin American relations, however, Washington's actions reflect U.S. regional and global objectives that have evolved in the course of 150 years of U.S. involvement in Latin America. This text provides students
"Nowhere did two understandings of U.S. identity—human rights and anticommunism—come more in conflict with each other than they did in Latin America. To refocus U.S. policy on human rights and democracy required a rethinking of U.S. policy as a whole. It required policy makers to choose between policies designed to defeat communism at any cost and those that remain within the bounds of the rule of law."—from the Introduction Kathryn Sikkink believes that the adoption of human rights policy represents a positive change in the relationship between the United States and Latin America. In Mixed Signals she traces a gradual but remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy over the last generation. By the 1970s, an unthinking anticommunist stance had tarnished the reputation of the U.S. government throughout Latin America, associating Washington with tyrannical and often brutally murderous regimes. Sikkink recounts the reemergence of human rights as a substantive concern, showing how external pressures from activist groups and the institution of a human rights bureau inside the State Department have combined to remake Washington's agenda, and its image, in Latin America. The current war against terrorism, Sikkink warns, could repeat the mistakes of the past unless we insist that the struggle against terrorism be conducted with respect for human rights and the rule of law.
During the first quarter-century of the Cold War, upholding human rights was rarely a priority in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Seeking to protect U.S. national security, American policymakers quietly cultivated relations with politically ambitious Latin American militaries—a strategy clearly evident in the Ford administration’s tacit support of state-sanctioned terror in Argentina following the 1976 military coup d’état. By the mid-1970s, however, the blossoming human rights movement in the United States posed a serious threat to the maintenance of close U.S. ties to anticommunist, right-wing military regimes. The competition between cold warriors and human rights advocates culminated in a fierce struggle to define U.S. policy during the Jimmy Carter presidency. In The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, William Michael Schmidli argues that Argentina emerged as the defining test case of Carter’s promise to bring human rights to the center of his administration’s foreign policy. Entering the Oval Office at the height of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of Argentines by the military government, Carter set out to dramatically shift U.S. policy from subtle support to public condemnation of human rights violation. But could the administration elicit human rights improvements in the face of a zealous military dictatorship, rising Cold War tension, and domestic political opposition? By grappling with the disparate actors engaged in the struggle over human rights, including civil rights activists, second-wave feminists, chicano/a activists, religious progressives, members of the New Right, conservative cold warriors, and business leaders, Schmidli utilizes unique interviews with U.S. and Argentine actors as well as newly declassified archives to offer a telling analysis of the rise, efficacy, and limits of human rights in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War.
Lars Schoultz proposes a way for all those interested in U.S. foreign policy fully to appreciate the terms of the present debate. To understand U.S. policy in Latin America, he contends, one must critically examine the deeply held beliefs of U.S. policy makers about what Latin America means to U.S. national security. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The book revolves around the role of the US federal government in the protection and promotion of human rights at the global level. A comparative analysis of human rights policy of different US Presidencies toward various regions of the world is analysed. The book discusses the broad theoretical perspectives on human rights and goes on to trace the growth and development of human rights in the US foreign policy from the time of American Declaration of Independence of 1776. In particular, it assesses the role of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in addressing the global human rights issues. Besides, the US policy toward the former Soviet Union, China and Latin America has also been elaborately examined. The US Declaration of Independence of 1776 together with the Bill of Rights of 1791 constitutes the bedrock of US commitment and dedication to human rights. The great American statesmen—Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Carter rendered yeomen service to the cause of human rights, both at home and the world at large. However, in practice, the concern for human rights during the successive US administrations has not been consistent as there were occasions when the US gave greater weightage to strategic-military relations and economic considerations than to human rights. Besides, there were instances when the US became a passive collaborator to human rights abuses committed by several of its allies, particularly in Latin America and Asia. Also, there were certain Presidencies as Nixon and Reagan that gave more rhetorical speeches and statements on human rights with little follow-up action. On the whole, the US human rights policy has been active, assertive and dynamic, and its application been region and situation specific.