Good Neighbor Policy

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Explain how US policies toward Latin America (such as the Alliance for Progress and Good Neighbor Policy) affected Latin America.

In the early 30s, the US wanted to protect its interests in Latin America, and conducted military interventions when their interests were not being respected. When Roosevelt came to power in 1933, he introduced the Good Neighbor Policy, which promised to deal more fairly with Latin America and stop direct interventions. However, the US became preoccupied with containing communism that it supported governments that expressed democratic or anti-Communist principles. This led to the US undermining governments that were unfriendly to US interests and also led to direct intervention by the US, which often resulted in …show more content…

However, realizing that the ability to vote did not necessarily guarantee political rights or the ability to be heard, some women joined political parties. In the labor force, seeing that they were paid less than their comparable male counterparts, women joined socialist, anarchist, and other types of labor organizations. In other areas, such as Peru and Bolivia, women were able to control small-scale commerce, and joined the labor force in service sectors. Despite limitations imposed on women, by the mid-1990s, 9% of the legislators in Latin America were women, the highest percentage in any region of the world, illustrating the new opportunities and power of …show more content…

The inability to repay large foreign loans, which were taken for (some unnecessary) development purposes, created a huge amount of debt, which, in turn, threatened economic stability. In other words, globalization created issues regarding the distribution of wealth. In addition, the economy could not keep up with the population growth rate (especially the urban population growth rate), meaning that it could not create enough jobs. This was troubling, and especially combined with inflation, led to social instability. The inability of the government to solve this instability and bring about needed changes, to provide social justice, and to be stable in and of itself also created issues. Lastly, the increasing power of drug cartels undermined the power of the government, as well as the power and will of the common

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