Volume XVI – Number 1
Richard E. Feinberg
Abstract: This paper explains the failure of US efforts to liberalize conservative, military governments in Central America in the 1970’s. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, Central America transformed as economies modernized due to the expansion of the regional Common Market. This in turn precipitated pressures for political change. Unfortunately, through the use of military force and US compliance, conservative regimes refused cede power to the people, and thus maintained their rigid hold over their respective countries. Upon ascendance, the Carter Administration felt that continuing to support the existing authoritarian regimes was both immoral and unsustainable. The chances for a leftist movement to capture the imagination of a disillusioned population and stage a coup were too risky. The US thought that such an uprising could lead to regional instability and threaten American interests. The Carter Administration thus adopted a strategy of “Controlled Evolutionism,” which sought to coax authoritarian regimes towards gradual liberal reform through the use of a “carrot and stick” approach. Central American countries responded in varying fashions. The military government in Honduras, which was already initiating liberal reforms, cooperated and accepted the election of a civilian government in April, 1980. Leaders in Guatemala and Nicaragua however, staunchly resisted US pressure to democratize. In El Salvador, negotiations for reform were cut short by a coup. Overall, Evolutionism’s failure can be attributed to the shortcomings of US policy making coupled with the difficulties associated with monitoring local dynamics. Evolutionism’s bureaucratic inefficiencies sought solutions to problems which were running behind local events, thus adversely affecting the US goal of liberalization in the region.
Keywords: Latin America, Central America, Carter, Controlled Evolutionism
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