The Influence Of Modernization Theory On The Foreign Policy Of The Kennedy Administration

The modernization theory that emerged in the United States in the mid-twentieth century was born in the context of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.It was the result and manifestation of the renewed connotation of American liberal internationalism during the Cold War era.It was also an academic achievement produced by the American social science community's research on modernization issues.Scholars from the fields of sociology,political science,and economics expounded their views and understanding of modernization theory from the perspective of their respective disciplines,forming different schools of modernization theory research.Modernization theory,with its unique academic rationality as a systematic social science ideology,laid a solid social science knowledge foundation for the subsequent implementation of American government policies.The MIT Center for International Studies was established to serve the cold war needs of the American government,and it developed into one of the most important research bases for modernization theory in the second half of the 1950 s.Rostow's modernization theory was a collection and summary of a series of studies by the center and himself,and was the center's most representative modernization theory research achievement.Rostow's theory was academically innovative by constructing the theory of the stage of economic growth,exploring the transition from traditional society to modern society from the perspective of economic history.At the same time,the theory also stood out with its own strong policy orientation,inherit of the traditional ideology of the United States,and its match with Kennedy's political ideology,becoming the theoretical basis and guiding principle of the Kennedy administration's third world policy.On the whole,the impact of modernization theory on the Kennedy administration's foreign policy was reflected in three levels: foreign strategy,overall third world policy,and specific policy implementation.Firstly,the modernization theory improved the status of the third world countries in the foreign strategy of the Kennedy administration,and proposed to promote the modernization of the third world to compete with the Soviet Union and compete for popular support.The proposal not only continued the containment strategy adopted by the United States since the beginning of the Cold War,but also gave it new connotation.Secondly,modernization theory promoted the formation of the third world policy with aid and development as its core of the Kennedy administration.Finally,at a specific policy implementation level,modernization theory also played a role in the implementation and operation of foreign development programs such as the Progressive Alliance and Peace Corps programs.However,these programs had not helped the target countries achieve modernization,but instead had shown the limitations of modernization theory.