Search results for ""Author Abraham F. Lowenthal""

The idea that the United States can and should help Latin America achieve democracy has been a recurrent theme in U.S. foreign policy throughout the twentieth century. By the 1990s, it has become virtually unchallenged doctrine, broadly supported on a bipartisan basis. Yet no systematic and comparative study of U.S. attempts to promote Latin American democracy has ever been published -- and the policy community often seems unaware of this history. In Exporting Democracy, Abraham F. Lowenthal and fourteen other noted scholars from the United States, Latin America, and Europe explore the motives, methods, and results of U.S. efforts to nurture Latin American democracy. Contributors focus on four periods when such efforts were most intense: the years from World War I to the Great Depression, the period immediately following World War II, the 1960s, and the Reagan years. The book tells a cautionary tale -- revealing that U.S. efforts to export democracy in the Americas have met with little enduring success and often have had counterproductive effects.

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The idea that the United States can and should help Latin America achieve democracy has been a recurrent theme in U.S. foreign policy throughout the twentieth century. By the 1990s, it had become virtually unchallenged doctrine, broadly supported on a bipartisan basis. Yet no systematic and comparative study of U.S. attempts to promote Latin American democracy has ever been published - and the policy community often seems unaware of this history. In Exporting Democracy, Abraham F. Lowenthal and fourteen other noted scholars from the United States, Latin America, and Europe explore the motives, methods, and results of U.S. efforts to nurture Latin American democracy. Contributors focus on four periods when such efforts were most intense: the years from World War I to the Great Depression, the period immediately following World War II, the 1960s, and the Reagan years. The book tells a cautionary tale - revealing that U.S. efforts to export democracy in the Americas have met with little enduring success and often have had counterproductive effects. Exporting Democracy is available in two paperback volumes, each introduced by Abraham Lowenthal and organized for convenient course use. In the first paperback volume, Themes and Issues, contributors and their topics are Paul W. Drake, From Good Men to Good Neighbors: 1912-1932; Leslie Bethell, From the Second World War to the Cold War: 1944-1954; Tony Smith, the Alliance for Progress: The 1960s; Thomas Carothers:,The Reagan Years: The 1980s; Elizabeth A. Cobbs, U.S. Business: Self-Interest and Neutrality; Paul G. Buchanan, The Impact of U.S. Labor; John Sheahan, Economic Forces and U.S. Policies; Laurence Whitehead, The Imposition of Democracy; Abraham F. Lowenthal, The United States and Latin American Democracy: Learning from History. In the second paperback volume, Case Studies, the contributors and their topics are: Carlos Escude, Argentina: The Costs of Contradiction; Heraldo Munoz, Chile: The Limits of "Success"; Jonathan Hartlyn, The Dominican Republic: The Legacy of Intermittent Engagement; Lorenzo Meyer, Mexico: The Exception and the Rule; Joseph Tulchin and Knut Walter, Nicaragua: The Limits of Intervention; Elizabeth A. Cobbs, U.S. Business: Self-Interest and Neutrality; Paul G. Buchanan, The Impact of U.S. Labor; John Sheahan, Economic Forces and U.S. Policies; Laurence Whitehead, The Imposition of Democracy; Abraham F. Lowenthal, The United States and Latin American Democracy: Learning from History.

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Drawing on nearly 150 personal interviews with individuals in the DominicanRepublic and the United States, on rare access to classified U.S. government documents, and on his own first-hand experiences during the crisis, Abraham F. Lowenthal rejects official, liberal, and radical accounts of the intervention. Instead, he explains it as the product of fundamental premises, of decision-making procedures, and of bureaucratic politics. In a new preface, Lowenthal discusses the Dominican intervention in its Cold War context and in comparative and theoretical perspective. As the issue of U.S. military action is raised anew-from Iraq to Bosnia-the lessons of the Dominican crisis will continue to command attention.

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National leaders who played key roles in transitions to democratic governance reveal how these were accomplished in Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Spain. Commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), these interviews shed fascinating light on how repressive regimes were ended and democracy took hold. In probing conversations with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Patricio Aylwin, Ricardo Lagos, John Kufuor, Jerry Rawlings, B J Habibie, Ernesto Zedillo, Fidel V Ramos, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, F W de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, and Felipe Gonzalez, editors Sergio Bitar and Abraham F Lowenthal focused on each leader's principal challenges and goals as well as their strategies to end authoritarian rule and construct democratic governance. Context-setting introductions by country experts highlight each nation's unique experience as well as recurrent challenges all transitions faced. A chapter by Georgina Waylen analyzes the role of women leaders, often underestimated. A foreword by Tunisia's former president, Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, underlines the book's relevance in North Africa, West Asia, and beyond. The editors' conclusion distills lessons about how democratic transitions have been and can be carried out in a changing world, emphasizing the importance of political leadership. This unique book should be valuable for political leaders, civil society activists, journalists, scholars, and all who want to support democratic transitions.

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Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs shows how to build mutually beneficial connections between the worlds of ideas and action, analysis and policy. Drawing on contributions from top international scholars with policy experience in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America, as well as senior policymakers throughout the Americas, Abraham F. Lowenthal and Mariano E. Bertucci make the case that scholars can both strengthen their research and contribute to improved policies while protecting academia from the risks of active participation in the policy process. Many scholars believe that policymakers are more interested in processes and outcomes than in understanding causality. Many policymakers believe that scholars are absorbed in abstract and self-referential debates and that they are primarily interested in crafting theories (and impressing other scholars) rather than developing solutions to pressing policy issues. The contributors to this book confront this gap head-on. They do not deny the obstacles to fruitful interaction between scholars and policymakers, but, drawing on their own experience, discuss how these obstacles can be and have been overcome. They present case studies that illustrate how scholars have helped reduce income inequality, promote democratic governance, improve gender equity, target international financial sanctions, manage the Mexico-U.S. border, and enhance inter-American cooperation. These success stories are balanced by studies on why academic analysts have failed to achieve much positive impact on counter narcotics and citizen security policies. The editors' astute conclusion identifies "best practices" and provides concrete recommendations to government agencies, international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and funding sources, as well as to senior university officials, academic departments and centers, think tanks, established scholars, junior faculty, and graduate students. Clearly written and thoughtfully organized, this innovative book provides analytic insights and practical wisdom for those who want to understand how to build more effective connections between the worlds of thought and action.

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