Seeds of Stability
Seeds of Stability
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Under what conditions do the governments of developing countries manage to reform their way out of political and economic instability? When are they instead overwhelmed by the forces of social conflict? What role can great powers play in shaping one outcome or the other? This book is among the first to show in detail how the United States has used foreign economic policy, including foreign aid, as a tool for intervening in the developing world. Specifically, it traces how the United States promoted land reform as a vehicle for producing political stability. By showing where that policy proved stabilizing, and where it failed, a nuanced account is provided of how the local structure of the political economy plays a decisive role in shaping outcomes on the ground.
- Emphasizes the importance of the local political economy as an 'intervening variable' between US foreign policy and outcomes on the ground
- Integrates economics and security in development studies, appealing to readers who seek a deeper understanding of the purposes of foreign economic policy
- Provides a useful lens for examining America's wider diplomatic, military, and economic relations with the developing world, ranging widely from early Cold War intervention by the US in Japan, Korea and Italy to the long-standing involvement of the US in Latin America from the 1950s to the 1990s
Reviews & endorsements
‘... this book certainly makes a valuable contribution to understanding the mechanisms when such reformist strategies might be effective, the demand and appetite for such interventions on Washington’s part in the coming future are likely to be very limited.’ Ionut C. Popescu, International Relations
Product details
- Published: May 2017
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 9781316636640
- Length: 316 pages
- Dimensions: 228 × 152 × 18 mm
- Weight: 0.45kg
- Contains: 1 b/w illus. 15 tables
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- Part I. From Grievance Theory to Reformist Intervention:
- 2. Grievance theory and US foreign policy
- 3. The strategy of reformist intervention
- Part II. Promoting Land Reform: Success and Failure:
- 4. Land to the tiller in the early Cold War: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Italy
- 5. Land reform as counterinsurgency policy: the Philippines and South Vietnam
- 6. Land reform and social revolution in Latin America:
- 1952–90
- 7. Iran: did land reform backfire?
- Part III. Looking Ahead:
- 8. Land and conflict in the twenty-first century
- 9. The future of reformist intervention.
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