Ideas and Interests in the 1973 Chilean Conflict

After having completed module activity two I feel like I have a better understanding of the differences between Goldstein and Keohane, and Laffey and Weldes. In the beginning, I did not fully understand how either group of authors viewed ideas and interests, and how these factors affect human actions. But, now I know that G+K see them as two separate items meaning they are unrelated and neither affects the other. Laffey and Weldes on the other hand believe that ideas cause interests so no matter what action is taken it has its roots in a fundamental belief. While I was working on my project I discovered that many actors in the 1973 Chilean Conflict were motivated by both ideas and interests.

From what I gathered in articles, memos, cables released by the State Department and the CIA, and personal interviews, I have somewhat of a difficult time discerning whether the Chilean people became conflicted with each other because of ideological differences or simply because the economy was bad causing problems for the nation. Although it was probably both I am not sure whether it is ideas or interests that sparked the fire. For example, when I interviewed my father for this project, an ex-airforce pilot and Allende supporter, he mainly talked about ‘us’ and ‘them’, the good guys and the bad guys, the left versus the right, and how he fought for his socialist beliefs. When I interviewed a family friend from the opposing side he said that the reason he supported the overthrow was because during the Allende years he and his mom had to wait hours in line just to get a piece of bread. So, in this case it seems like a bad economy (interest) motivated this Pinochet supporter.
When discussing America’s involvement in the coup I feel it's much easier to distinguish which factor played a bigger role. Most of the articles I read said the U.S. got involved to protect its commercial interest abroad. So, the U.S. only took notice of Chile because Allended wanted to nationalize U.S. and foreign corporations, not because they actually thought it was a communist threat- although that's what the U.S. claimed. But, I think it is difficult to know whether the U.S.’s interests are completely separate from their ideological beliefs as Goldstein and Keohane claim. I understand that the U.S. had to ensure their material interests abroad but isn't that because they are Capitalists who value the dollar more than anything else?

The ‘which came first?’ question often dawns on me by the time I have made a conclusion. I think about it a little more and I am without a conclusion, again.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 31, 2018 at 10:14 AM

    The US side on anything dealing with Latin America and the Caribbean is easy to define because there is little we have done there that has not been driven completely by self-interest. I honestly have a difficult time differentiating between interest and ideas. I struggled since the beginning of our discussion. How do you have interest that is not affected by socially engineered behaviors? In this case your family friend was driven to revolution because of the bad economy, but to dig deeper we could ask at what point did he deem the risk of continuity to outweigh the risk of revolution? How did cultural views of disobedience and public protest also influence his interests in this matter? Maybe I'm confusing things even more lol.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anarchy in the USA

           While discussing realist motives and intentions, it seems that the United States is headed down a curious path worth looking at. Clearly a powerful nation, the United States should be in a unique position to latch onto globalization in order to secure a stable future. Calm, cool, collected domination is a much better look than ramping up rhetoric and perceived might, because your neighbor's interest to attack is seemingly when they are most threatened by show of force.             The United States has long taken advantage of its allies, while using economic bargaining to secure peaceful existence. The European Union is a clear ally in the spread of Democracy and Capitalism, two tenants central to the existence of the United States. It is this point that makes recent events troubling with regards to a peaceful future.             In an effort to bolster nationalism, our country has tur...
Read more

Waltz's Neorealism

The reading by Waltz points out some key points that Neorealists believe in. Neorealists view power as a possibly useful means. Neorealism contends that international politics can be understood only if the effects of structure are added to the unit-level explanations of traditional realism. It rejects the assumption that man’s innate lust for power constitutes a sufficient cause of war in the absence of of any other. Specifically, we need to look at the causal link interacting units and international outcomes. We’ve established before with Hobbes that the system we live in is anarchy. States are rational actors that at their basest level want to survive. Neorealism states that within an anarchy, states need to provide their own security to protect themselves from threats. This security dilemma is a problem, war occurs. This depends on situations and characteristics of states, not because states want to have war. The more important question then becomes what started th...
Read more

Corporations Will Run Amuck

Corporations help create domestic and global economic prosperity. However, when they grow extremely rich they can become powerful which may threaten sovereign actors’ authority, both on a national and international level. Additionally, through hefty donations their lobbying capability allows them to manipulate politicians and the political process undermining democratic processes and devaluing the voice of the people.  In order to prevent corporations from interfering with the democratic processes there needs to be an overarching system that monitors what corporations do and how they do it. To a certain extent room and flexibility may help corporations better compete against one another. Capitalist societies like the United States believe that less regulations on corporations means more incentive to be innovative. And while that may be true to some extent, there are also many abuses these companies commit in order to maximize their profits. Without strict gui...
Read more