The Open Door for Reagan

Abstract

THE OPEN DOOR FOR REAGAN Deborah W. Larson KJince the end of the Vietnam War economic explanations of American foreign policy have become unfashionable. Instead, political scientists have shaped their analysis to fit a "neorealist" framework, purged of cold war rhetoric. Neorealism views American actions as attempts either to cope with, or redress, the decline of U.S. political and economic hegemony and to define vital strategic interests. In contrast to scholarly thinking, the Reagan administration's foreign policy is responsive to ideology, not interest. American policy toward Central America has once again moved to the forefront of the national consciousness as the Reagan administration has chosen to stake the credibility of the United States' superpower status on achieving an "acceptable" outcome to the civil war in El Salvador and an end to the Marxist regime in Nicaragua. The administration's ideological justification for its initiatives in Central America suggests that the neorealist explanation may no longer be adequate. For example, the Reagan administration hailed the large turnout in the March 25, 1984, elections, despite guerilla violence and sabotage, as proof of Salvadoran support for democracy. Yet voting in El Salvador is compulsory, with fines or worse for noncompliance. The previous El Salvador government was portrayed as both democratic and legitimate. Yet, the United States was not pleased with the outcome of the Constituent Assembly elections in March 1982; to prevent the victorious rightwing parties from electing as interim president Roberto d'Aubuisson, who was implicated in death squad murders, the U.S. government Deborah W. Larson is assistant professor at Columbia University. She has recently completed a book entitled The Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation, to be published by Princeton University Press. 13 14 SAIS REVIEW pressured the military to appoint a moderate, Alvaro Magaña. Accounts of the most recent election highlight an alarming degree of administrative bungling of such severity that at least one Salvadoran death squad has threatened retaliation against the Elections Council. Regardless of who is the victor of this most recent attempt at free elections, Roberto d'Aubuisson or José Napoleón Duarte, effective power will continue to reside with the right-wing military. El Salvador's strategic value is minimal, its principal economic product coffee, and its support within the United States Congress lukewarm at best. Officials of the Reagan administration have reiterated that the United States cannot tolerate either the continued existence of a Marxist regime in Nicaragua or victory for the guerillas in El Salvador. Why do official perceptions diverge from reality? What accounts for the Reagan administration's wholehearted support of a dubious democracy, which is, at best, unimportant to U.S. security? Finally, what alternative policies are suggested by an economic interpretation? In the late 1950s, historian William Appleman Williams stimulated a revisionist strand of research by offering a coherent theoretical interpretation of American foreign policy. Although he preferred democratic socialism, Williams acknowledged that it was incompatible with the American people's longstanding infatuation with private property. Consequently , he looked to the past for an alternative model for a more humane, equitable, and peaceful society. According to Williams, the American Founding Fathers were mercantilists. Enlightened gentry, they used state power to create a territorial and commercial empire not for selfish commercial interests, but for the good of the community as a whole. American mercantilists sought a favorable balance of trade through protectionism and promotion of exports. Their overriding concern was to prevent economic surpluses and unemployment that could endanger domestic stability and democracy. The only flaw in the American mercantilist strategy, as Williams perceived it, was their emphasis on economic expansion as a substitute for social reform. When the frontier appeared to be closed in the 1890s, American leaders redirected their energies from continental expansion to the establishment of a commercial empire based on free trade. The new outlook was reflected in the war against Spain and Hay's "open-door" notes, which called on other nations to respect the principle of equal commercial opportunity in China. The open-door policy was a distillation of a strategy designed to create an "informal empire" based on free trade. Ultimately, the American leaders' drive for access to and control over...