Seeds of Stability
Land Reform and US Foreign Policy

This book analyses American interventions in the developing world, asking what can be done to reduce their economic and human cost.

Ethan B. Kapstein (Author)

9781107185685, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 May 2017

316 pages, 1 b/w illus. 15 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'... this book certainly makes a valuable contribution to understanding the mechanisms when such reformist strategies might be effective, the demand and appetite for such interventions on Washington's part in the coming future are likely to be very limited.' Ionut C. Popescu, International Relations

Under what conditions do the governments of developing countries manage to reform their way out of political and economic instability? When are they instead overwhelmed by the forces of social conflict? What role can great powers play in shaping one outcome or the other? This book is among the first to show in detail how the United States has used foreign economic policy, including foreign aid, as a tool for intervening in the developing world. Specifically, it traces how the United States promoted land reform as a vehicle for producing political stability. By showing where that policy proved stabilizing, and where it failed, a nuanced account is provided of how the local structure of the political economy plays a decisive role in shaping outcomes on the ground.

1. Introduction
Part I. From Grievance Theory to Reformist Intervention: 2. Grievance theory and US foreign policy
3. The strategy of reformist intervention
Part II. Promoting Land Reform: Success and Failure: 4. Land to the tiller in the early Cold War: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Italy
5. Land reform as counterinsurgency policy: the Philippines and South Vietnam
6. Land reform and social revolution in Latin America: 1952–90
7. Iran: did land reform backfire?
Part III. Looking Ahead: 8. Land and conflict in the twenty-first century
9. The future of reformist intervention.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]