Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy: The Alliance for Progress in Latin America. By Jeffrey F. Taffet. (New York: Routledge, 2007. xii, 301 pp. Cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-0-415-97770-8. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-415-97771-5.)

Abstract

This is an outstanding book on an important topic. The Alliance for Progress represents one of the few moments in the post-World War II period that Latin America received any real attention from U.S. policy makers. The Alliance captures the essence of the 1960s: it was idealistic and compassionate; beautifully articulated; based on solid but contradictory social science theory; and abandoned before it had the chance to achieve its ambitious goals. To paraphrase Todd Gitlin, who wrote about various protest movements in the decade: what was happening was not what we thought was happening. The Alliance was not what everyone thought it was. Increasingly, I believe that the Alliance for Progress was merely a slogan that meant something different to everyone who uttered it. Jeffrey F. Taffet has done a lot to help us understand just what happened and why. This work is not an exhaustive history of the program, but rather a series of case studies that highlight the purposes and pitfalls of using aid to achieve foreign policy goals. He shows that the Alliance failed for three reasons. First, there was an inherent conflict between the lofty humanitarian goals and a desire to fight the Cold War. Also, political considerations proved more important in developing aid priorities than development or humanitarian considerations. Finally, as an anticommunist tool, the Alliance supported the very people who opposed its political and economic goals. In the end, the Alliance for Progress devolved into another foreign aid program that rewarded friends, hurt enemies, and promoted American economic interests and ideology.