United States Military Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean
A Socio-Voluntaristic Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46661/revintpensampolit.10549Keywords:
Military intervention, political stability, United States foreign policyAbstract
Why are foreign military interventions effective in establishing political stability in some cases but not in others? The present study answers the question through comparative historical analysis by examining nine cases of United States military intervention in Central America and the Caribbean: Panama (1903-1925), Cuba (1906-1922), Nicaragua (1909-1933), Dominican Republic (1912-1924), Haiti (1915-1934), Dominican Republic (1965-1966), Grenada (1983-1985), Panama (1989-1994), and Haiti (1994-1997). The study proposes a holistic theory of political stabilization through foreign military intervention that takes into consideration both social preconditions in the target state as well as voluntaristic factors pertinent to the intervening power, thus bridging divergent approaches from the fields of Comparative Politics and International Relations, respectively. The study finds that foreign military intervention is more effective in establishing political stability in target states that experience a process of nation-building before the intervention and in target states where the post-intervention regime is neither so low-power that it is incapable of performing the political functions expected of it by the nation or so high-power that it represses broad sectors of society that play an influential role in the nation. These findings have important implications for both the scholarly community, which may expand this line of research by applying the socio-voluntaristic theory to other cases of foreign military intervention, as well as foreign policymaking circles, which may be inclined to reconsider not only how interventions are to be conducted but also where and when they are most likely to be effective in establishing political stability.
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