U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN INTERNATIONAL CLIENTELISM on JSTOR ( lemmy.world )

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN
INTERNATIONAL CLIENTELISM
By Osita G. Afoaku
INTRODUCTION
In the course of four decades following the conclusion of World War II, U.S. foreign policy emphasized two major objectives, namely, countering the spread of communism and promoting democracy and the free market system around the world. For U.S. policy makers, these objectives were in harmony since communism was generally believed to be inimical to American interest in promoting a liberal international political economy. However, in many Third World countries, U.S. policy turned out to be contradictory. Although the U.S. professed interest in political and economic development in the Third World, it backed up political leaders and factions that professed anti-communism but turned out to be authoritarian and, often unable or unwilling to promote mod- ernization. In the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, the U.S. was
solidly on the side of the most brutal, visionless, corrupt and unpopular regimes - the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcus of Philippines, the Somoza dynasty of Nicaragua, Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, Mobutu See Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), emperor Haile Sellaisie of Ethiopia, to name a few. This paradox in U.S. foreign policy largely accounts for a rather simplistic (Cold War) explanation of Washington's cozy association
with authoritarian Third World regimes. I Following the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet empire, many countries witnessed a resurgence of popular agitation for democ- racy and human rights or what Samuel Huntington characterized as the "third wave" of global democratic expansion.? Throughout the Third World and else- where, the goal of democratization includes the dismantling of autocratic politi- cal systems. Against this backdrop, critics have pointed out the need to revise American foreign policy in keeping with post-Cold War realities. Believing
that the United States should make important contributions toward the process of