The Research On US Human Rights Diplomacy Toward Chile In The Carter Administration

In the 1970 s,the U.S.A.began to adjust its foreign policy toward the Third World.There is no doubt that the position of the factors of human rights rose gradually in the foreign policies of the United States.After Jimmy Carter was elected president of the United States in 1977,he began to promote human rights diplomacy.Latin America is one of the important objects of human rights diplomacy in the United States.At that time,in Latin America,especially the three countries of the Southern Cone of South America(Argentina,Chile,and Uruguay)were ruled by military regimes,which became Carter's main target countries for human rights diplomacy in Latin America.Among them,Chile is representative,and its international attention is the highest in these three countries.Therefore,the human rights are the first concern of the Carter Administration's policy toward Chilean military government.American government hoped that it could improve its image and prevent communism from infiltrating into Chile by urging the military regime to improve its human rights situation.However,the Carter administration's human rights diplomacy couldn't solve the human rights issues toward Chile.Instead,America and Chile estranged from each other.Globally,the Carter administration lost some pro-U.S.regimes because of human rights diplomacy.Therefore,it was queried and criticized by domestic public opinion.Afterwards,Ronald Reagan,Carter's successor,combined human rights with realistic interests after learning Carter's lesson.The Reagan administration took the pragmatic human rights diplomacy on Chilean military government.This dissertation employed the latest declassified document from American government,and used some domestic and international relevant achievements.The principal purpose of this dissertation is to research into the origin and context of the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy toward Chile,to make know how the human rights diplomacy toward Chile be published,to reveal its specific measures,in addition,the manifestation and reasons of the drop,to discuss how the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy influenced the Reagan Administration's foreign policies.More importantly,with a small see big,we couldanalyze the characteristic and nature about the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy toward the Third World by the research of the case study about Chile,and enhance our understanding and knowledge on American human rights diplomacy.In order to enable the Carter's human rights diplomacy toward Chile to form a clear venation,by means of arranging and analyzing various documents,this dissertation revealed the essence of the human rights diplomacy toward Chile,its influence toward U.S.-Chilean relation and the relation between the human rights diplomacy toward Chile and it toward the Third World.The main body of this dissertation consists of four chapters:The first chapter analyzes the background of the whole research,and it analyzes the origin of American human rights diplomacy,and its development and evolution.This chapter also analyzes the Nixon and Ford Administration's policy toward the Chilean military government,and the human rights factor began to occur to the U.S.-Chilean relation during the period of the Ford Administration.The second chapter analyzes the Letelier event which is the catalytic of the human rights diplomacy toward Chile firstly.Though this event happened in the Ford Administration,it influenced the decision and power of the human rights diplomacy toward Chile.Afterwards,the chapter analyzes the policy measures about the Carter's human rights diplomacy toward Chile systematically,including supporting the condemnation from the international organizations about Chile,adjusting American assistance policy,limiting private capital to Chile with America's impact on international financial institutions and so on.There were three amendments of Foreign Assistance Act passed by congress during the Ford Period,and they had legal enforceable ability in the period of the Carter Administration.What's more,they were the legal basis of the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy.The third chapter analyzes the frustration of the Carter's human rights diplomacy.It is because that the human rights diplomacy couldn't prevent the Soviet Union from expanding in the world,and it also couldn't improve its image in the Third World.On the contrary,the human rights diplomacy damaged the relations with friendly governments.Therefore,the cooling of the human rights diplomacy is unavoidable when it damaged the realistic interests.The forth chapter analyzes how Carter's human rights diplomacy influenced Reagan's policy.The Reagan administration added “double standards” in the human rights,and considered realistic interests at first.Soon the pragmatic human rightsdiplomacy was born.At last,this chapter analyzes how the pragmatic human rights diplomacy affected the 1988 Plebiscite and Re-democratization in Chile from objective aspect.In the conclusion,the various aspects of the whole dissertation are summarized.The dissertation holds that the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy toward Chile is the result of the transitional period of American diplomacy in the1970 s.The Carter Administration hoped that it could stabilize the Chilean social situation,and protect the American interests in Chile.However,solving the human rights issue of Chile was not the starting point of human rights diplomacy towards Chile,therefore,both the opposition of Chile and the Chilean Military Government were not welcome it.Analyzing the Case of Chile proves that the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy towards the Third World couldn't solve third world countries' human rights issues fundamentally,and treat all of countries equally.The Reagan Administration implemented the pragmatic human rights diplomacy after learning the lessons of the Carter Administration's human rights diplomacy,and it played a positive role in the Re-democratization of Chile objectively.In addition,the pragmatic human rights diplomacy is active in the field of American diplomacy now.However,although Carter and his successors described the human rights diplomacy so well,it couldn't change the fact which is that human rights diplomacy is a method of maintaining the interests of America.