[“Is Latin America Democracy and Development as the result of US Democracy Promotion?”]

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research supervisor, colleagues, peers and family whose immense and constant support has been a source of continuous guidance and inspiration.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names & surname here], declare that the following dissertation/thesis and its entire content has been an individual, unaided effort and has not been submitted or published before. Furthermore, it reflects my opinion and take on the topic and is does not represent the opinion of the University.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION1

1.1 Background1

1.2 Dissertation Structure2

1.3 Rationale4

1.4 Justification for Choice of Literature5

CHAPTER 02: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY: THE COLD WAR YEARS (1947-1989)6

2.1 Promoting Democracy7

2.2 The Pendulum and the Policy8

2.3 Cold War Contradiction: the Reagan years (1981-1989)10

CHAPTER 03: METHODOLOGY14

3.1 Research Design14

3.2 Literature Search14

3.3 Pitfalls and Problems15

3.4 Timeline15

REFERENCES16

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

As the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, marking the "death of communism”, Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history”. What he foresaw was not the end of world events, but the 'mend point of mankind's ideological evolution” - the triumph of liberal democracy. Fukuyama's argument may be one of the most contested in contemporary academe, but it is fair to comment that the ideals of liberal democracy have gained a near-universal appeal.

Since the early 1970s, the number of democracies in the world has multiplied dramatically. The overthrow of Portugal's dictatorial regime in 1974 marked the beginning of a global trend toward democracy. Samuel Huntington has dubbed this posi-74 period he “third wave” of global democratic expansion. In Latin America, the political pendulum has swung between authoritarianism and democracy every few decades for more than a century. Currently, all of (he Latin American states (with the important exception of Cuba) are classified as "democratic”, albeit to varying degrees.

Virtually all of the post-World War II U.S. administrations have publicly declared democracy promotion an integral part of foreign policy. This reflects a virtually unquestioned support for democracy in America; support that is rooted in the nations own perceived success with pluralist democracy. The Clinton administration's declared commitment to enlarging the sphere of market-based democracies merely attached an attractive ideological rationale to a pragmatic shift in policy that had been going on for more than a decade. Promoting democracy, in practice, has centered on Washington's encouragement of free elections. What democracy promotion was not about, however, was creating institutions and pushing policies that would bring about more equality in access to wealth and resources as demanded by the impoverished majorities in many (if not most) Latin American countries.

1.2 Dissertation Structure

It must be stressed that democracy is a contested concept, one for which different and competing definitions exist. As a result, when applied, each definition yields a different interpretation of social reality. Chapter 1 will pose the question, why democracy, in an attempt to discover the underlying values of liberal (or pluralist) thought — form of democracy that American policymakers claim to be promoting abroad and Development as the result of US Democracy ...