Peace Corps to the right: An analysis of the U.S. Peace Corps in Central America

One conceptual goal of the Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship; one practical goal is to provide assistance to developing countries. I examine the duality of the Peace Corps mission to serve as an a-political agency of human development and to promote public diplomacy, as well as consider a third, external goal of United States strategic foreign interests. The aim of this paper is to determine when these goals compete and the conditions under which one goal takes precedence over the others. I investigate whether external factors beyond the stated mission lead to host nations receiving favorable treatment from the Peace Corps, using panel data for six Central American countries over the period 1973-1999. My results indicate a robust positive relationship between factors such as right-leaning government disposition, democratic institutional presence and the amount of Peace Corps activity a host country experiences.