Search

Based in part on newly released documents and interviews, this article asks about the impact of the 1976 assassination of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier in Washington. It finds that the case contributed to the end of the Cold War in Latin America by uniting strange bedfellows: advocates of human rights and defenders of national sovereignty. Human rights proponents found allies among US diplomats shocked at an Augusto Pinochet regime that thought it could challenge US national sovereignty with impunity. Because human rights were limited in their potential, the article suggests that, outside of the Soviet sphere, a reassertion of US hegemony against runaway allies proved a necessary condition for ending the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact on U.S.-Chilean diplomatic relations of the assassination of Chilean exile and former ambassador and minister Orlando Letelier, who had been an outspoken opponent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Letelier's car exploded on September 21, 1976 as he drove into Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. The investigation showed that the culprit was the National Intelligence Directorate, the Chilean secret police, helped by American-Chilean Michael Townley. Isabel Letelier, Orlando's widow, was the most important individual nonstate actor influencing U.S. foreign relations history in the Letelier case. In the 1980s, the case became instrumental in U.S. President Ronald Reagan's eventual abandonment of Pinochet.

This work examines the diplomatic, political, and cultural impact of artistic internationalism on US-Chilean relations in 1968. Based on a micro-historical approach to the global Cold War, the article analyses the relationship between modernisation programmes and artistic modernism under the framework of the Alliance for Progress. The case study of 'De Cézanne a Miró', the most expensive art collection sent to Chile by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), reveals the creation, exportation, and reception of a distinctive cultural ethos promoted by US agents. The article traces the transnational networks that defined cultural encounters in a crucial year for domestic and global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries use economic sanctions as a way to force their opponents to make policy concessions. Such external pressure may, as the designers of sanctions often intend, affect the degree of domestic support for the target's political leaders. It may even threaten the leaders’ survival in office. We investigate how these dual pressures—preference for policy concessions and concern about target leaders’ political future—shape the use of sanctions in the context of political relations between the sanctioning and sanctioned countries. The political relations between the two countries matter because a decline in the likelihood of the target leader's political survival results in a cost for the sanctioner when the target is a friendly regime and generates a benefit when the targeted regime is an adversary. Therefore, we argue, and show statistically, that economic coercion is more likely for friendly governments when they are politically stable and unfriendly governments when they are politically vulnerable. We illustrate our causal mechanism using declassified primary sources for two case studies of US sanctions against Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the place and role of the Taiwan issue at the present stage of Sino-American relations. The author asserts that despite a certain softening of discord during the Ma Yingjeou administration and decreasing possibility of the Taiwan problem becoming a cause of conflict between China and the United States, historical differences between Beijing and Washington on Taiwan have not been resolved. The victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ingwen in the last presidential election may become a new challenge for relations between the PRC and the U.S.A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about Social Movements, Repression, and Political Culture in Chile during the 1960s. The article discusses the dictatorship and military coup in Chile led by General AugustoPinochet. Topics include history of Pampa Irigoin, urban crisis in the nation, and support received by the U.S. government. Also discussed is the Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urbanization's housing program Plan de Ahorro Popular (PAP).

Democratic states sometimes engage in covert interventions--sometimes involving forcible regime change--against other democracies. Critics charge that these interventions raise doubts about the robustness of the "democratic peace." I argue that they require analysts to rethink some aspects of democratic-peace theory. Democratic states base their behavior toward other democracies on expectations about the future trajectory of their regimes: whether, and to what extent, those states will likely remain democratic in the future. When they expect democracy to persist, the constraints of the democratic peace operate. But when democracies expect another state's democratic character to break down, or decay, they prove more willing to engage in covert forcible regime change. I test my dynamic version of democratic-peace theory by examining US efforts to forcibly depose Iran's Mohammed Mossadegh (1953) and Chile's Salvador Allende (1970-1973). The framework developed here helps to resolve a longstanding anomaly for the democratic peace--secret interventions between democracies--while also providing policymakers with a clearer sense of the stakes associated with covert democracy promotion and subversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the transition to civilian rule in Chile largely overlooks or marginalizes the role of the armed and confrontational forms of resistance to the dictatorship. This article traces the pre and post-coup history of the Left's engagement with armed forms of struggle and evaluates the effects their incorporation into the struggle against the dictatorship had upon the regime and the Reagan administration. It concludes that armed resistance was a major factor in determining US policy to Chile during the 1980s, and therefore played an important role in the transition as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Pan-American project implied a series of political, economic, and cultural strategies that increased the influence of the United States in Latin America. In this context, the countries of the Southern Cone began accepting arbitration by American presidents or delegates in territorial border conflicts. The article analyzes the participation of the United States in the conflict between Argentina and Chile over the Puna de Atacama (1899). This approach aims at identifying the contributions of the United Sates in the selection of criteria to negotiate the border, in the first place, and, secondly, to explore the connections between said arbitration and Pan- Americanism in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nixon and Ford administrations celebrated the 1973 Chilean coup and did everything they could to help the dictatorship that followed. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in particular, supported General Augusto Pinochet’s regime and turned a blind eye to its human rights abuses. But how did the Chilean dictatorship view the United States and how did the relationship play out in practice? Drawing on Chilean and U.S. documents, this article argues that in spite of Kissinger’s efforts, bilateral relations were actually rather tense. Not only did the Chilean dictatorship continually request more than the Ford administration could offer but Santiago’s military leaders also had different conceptions of the Cold War and how to fight it. This, in turn, sheds light on the problems U.S. policy makers faced when dealing with anti-communist Third World allies. It also points to the fragmentation of the global Cold War struggle in the mid-1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The final decades of the nineteenth century were marked by diplomatic confrontations between Chile and the United States. In 1891 the killing of US Navy sailors in a riot in Valparaíso threatened to provoke armed conflict, an event known as the Baltimore Crisis. This article investigates how William Russell Grace, the head of a merchant firm based in New York, played a central role in negotiating between Chile and the United States. By placing his activities in a transnational framework, Grace responded to the demands of multiple nation-states in the Americas. Observing changes in Grace's transnational economic infrastructure can help to identify larger long-term shifts in diplomacy and power on South America's Pacific coast in the late nineteenth century, especially Chile's emergence as a regional hegemon. The actions of Grace also raise larger questions regarding the power of business in the Americas in the late nineteenth century, especially with regard to growing US interests in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is usually assumed that US policy makers need to generate popular consent in order to undertake regime change against another state. This article explores the ways in which contextual factors such as the joint democracy effect, popular values and public moods influenced efforts by elites in the United States to generate popular consent for regime change in the Philippines and Chile. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the United States undertook covert action in Chile due to public recognition of the target state's democratic credentials and a public mood opposed to further military ventures. In contrast, the absence of a strong joint democracy effect, a national mood infused with romantic nationalism qua militarism and social Darwinism facilitated efforts by US elites to generate consent for the invasion and occupation of the Philippines. Subsequently, this article contributes to understandings of the domestic-level factors that influence foreign policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a debate between a book reviewer and the author of the book "Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile," concerning a book review which was published in the 2010 Summer issue of this journal. The book's author discusses her motivation in writing it, including the strong views she held on the U.S. foreign policy towards Chile under U.S. President Richard Nixon and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The book reviewer discusses the book "Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile," critiquing the portrayal of the importance of the U.S. in Chilean politics.

Proponents and critics of the democratic peace have debated the extent to which covert attempts by democracies to overthrow other elected governments are consistent with or contradict democratic peace theory. The existing debate, however, fails to acknowledge that there are multiple democratic peace theories and that inter-democratic covert intervention might have different implications for different arguments. In this article, we first distill hypotheses regarding covert foreign regime change from three theories of democratic peace. Relying primarily on declassified government documents, we then investigate these hypotheses in the context of U.S. covert intervention in Chile (1970-73). The evidence suggests that covert intervention is highly inconsistent with norms and checks-and-balances theories of democratic peace. The evidence is more consistent with selectorate theory, but questions remain because democratic leaders undertook interventions with a low likelihood of success and a high likelihood that failure would be publicized, which would constitute exactly the type of policy failure that democratic executives supposedly avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2003 US-Chile free trade agreement, regarded by many as consistent with Chile's long-held trade liberalisation strategy, nonetheless engendered a surprisingly vigorous debate focused on the proposed elimination of the bandas de precio protecting traditional agricultural crops. Opposition to the agreement, mounted by the conservative Alianza por Chile, offers an intriguing political case study that suggests that populist posturing surrounding free trade agreements may persist long after a trade liberalisation strategy has become well-established. This article argues that agricultural liberalisation will be a significant challenge for Chile's governing coalition if it wishes to pursue trade negotiations while seeking to avoid costly political battles at home over the economic costs of abandoning price supports and the challenges of `reconverting' to an export-oriented sector. Even given the strong elite consensus around trade liberalisation in Chile, the interconnections between sectoral interest groups, domestic politics and trade negotiations remain relevant, and deserving of analytical attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides a detailed analysis of Chile's position before the start of and in the first stage of World War II. Using sources in Chilean and American archives, the author emphasizes Chile's relations with the United States and economic and political attitudes toward the war. The article also links US-Chile relations to the Chilean position on the conflict in Europe, especially with Nazi Germany.

The article discusses the political opposition to the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s and 1980s and the U.S.'s relationship with Chile throughout the 20th century. Topics, including possible democratization in Chile, Chilean inflation, the Chilean political party the Christian Democrats and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) role in Chilean elections, are discussed.

The article offers information about an agreement signed in 2011 between the U.S. and Chile regarding antitrust cooperation between the countries. Text of an announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the agreement is presented which includes discussion of topics such as the importance of antitrust cooperation, international conflicts, and business competition laws in the two countries.

The article discusses the current political situation in Chile following the election of President Sebastian Piñera. Piñera who is said to follow the populist path of the Concertación, the country's once ruling center-left coalition. The author says that Chile will join a bloc of U.S. allies bloc including Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, an alliance to counter the region's leftist Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).