American Colonialism

It will be suggested that the US, as a (more or less) democratic state, was compelled by internal domestic pressures to take greater responsible for overt colonies than for nominally independent client states. It will also be suggested that "strategic" colonies, acquired for national purposes, drew more public attention, and thus were more affected by domestic pressures, than were "economic" colonies that were of concern chiefly to particular economic interests.

The two great acquisitions of the SpanishAmerican War, Cuba and the Philippines, represent nearly mirror images in the political and economic dynamics of American imperialism. While the specific pretext for war with Spain was provided by the mysterious (and almost certainly accidental) explosion that sank the battleship USS *Maine, this event took place in a context of strong American public support for the Cuban independence cause.

Given this domestic political context, the US had effectively no choice but to endorse formal Cuban inde

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in, the regimes it supported, and in strengthening their economies as a further bulwark against Communism. Moreover, to the extent that direct American economic interests were involved, these were largely industrial rather than agrarian in character. Thus, the tendency to form an alliance with local agrarian elites (or promote the emergence of such elites), and endorse the authoritarian political structures favored by these elites  so strong in neoimperial relations with agricultural exporters, and conspicuous in Cuba and Central America  was substantially lacking. Client states they might be, but the predominance of the strategic role limited the degree of "clientistic corruption" (Davidson, p. 207). Moreover, the strategic importance of these countries guaranteed them a higher level of American domestic political attention than was usually focused on Cuba, the Caribbean, and Central America. Repressive measures by the client governments of these Asian countries were more extensively reported in the American press, where it could produce domestic criticism of support for those regimes. To some degree, therefore, the US was compelled to take on a colonial responsibility for local governance. Two of these three countrie
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Washington Consensus, Third World, Stephens Stephens, Southeast Asia, Keynes Stiglitz, Reconstruction Development, World Bank, Central America, Cuba Philippines, CaribbeanCentral American, third world, washington consensus, central america, agrarian elites, local agrarian, american public, development third world, south vietnam, nominally independent, development third, buying power, local agrarian elites, caribbean central america, clientistic corruption davidson, agrarian elites elites,
Approximate Word count = 3943
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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