| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines the Latin American foreign policy of the administration of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). During his presidency, Carter attempted to move away from the Cold War concerns that had dominated American foreign policy since the late 1940s. In Latin America, he implemented a human rights policy, renegotiated new Panama Canal treaties, attempted to establish good relations with revolutionary governments in Grenada and Nicaragua, and tried to normalize relations with Cuba. With Carter now approaching 100 years old, there may be a reconsideration of the generally negative interpretations of his presidency. The available documentation, however, does not support this tendency. Primary source material from the Jimmy Carter presidential library, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Library of Congress, the Foreign Relations of the United States series, memoirs, and oral histories shows that Carter’s foreign policy was unfocused, chaotic, and inconsistent. The conclusion of this thesis is that Carter’s policies in Latin America were generally ineffective, despite some isolated successes. This was because he did not offer a new vision to replace the Cold War, and the policies that he did implement often ignored local and regional factors. | en_US |
