Kirkpatrick Doctrine

TheKirkpatrick Doctrinewas thedoctrineexpounded byUnited States Ambassador to the United NationsJeane Kirkpatrickin the early 1980s based on her 1979 essay, "Dictatorships and Double Standards".The doctrine was used to justify theU.S. foreign policyof supportingThird Worldanti-communistdictatorshipsduring theCold War.

Doctrine

Kirkpatrick claimed that states in theSoviet blocand otherCommunist statesweretotalitarianregimes,while pro-Westerndictatorships were merely "authoritarian"ones. According to Kirkpatrick, totalitarian regimes were more stable and self-perpetuating than authoritarian regimes, and thus had a greater propensity to influence neighboring states.

The Kirkpatrick Doctrine was particularly influential during the administration ofPresidentRonald Reagan.The Reagan administration gave varying degrees of support to several militaristic anti-Communistdictatorships, including those inGuatemala(to 1985), thePhilippines(to 1986), andArgentina(to 1983), and armed themujahideenin theSoviet–Afghan War,UNITAduring theAngolan Civil War,and theContrasduring theNicaraguan Revolutionas a means of toppling governments, or crushing revolutionary movements, in those countries that did not support the aims of the US.

Kirkpatrick's tenet that totalitarian regimes are more stable than authoritarian regimes has come under criticism since thecollapse of the Soviet Unionin 1991, particularly as Kirkpatrick predicted that the Soviet system would persist for decades.

According to Kirkpatrick, authoritarian regimes merely try to control and/or punish their subjects' behaviors, while totalitarian regimes moved beyond that into attempting to control the thoughts of their subjects, using not onlypropaganda,butbrainwashing,re-education, widespread domesticespionage,and masspolitical repressionbased on stateideology.Totalitarian regimes also often attempt to undermine or destroy community institutions deemed ideologically tainted (e.g.,religiousones, or even thenuclear family), while authoritarian regimes by and large leave these alone. For this reason, she argues that the process of restoring democracy is easier in formerly authoritarian than in formerly totalitarian states, and that authoritarian states are more amenable to gradual reform in a democratic direction than are totalitarian states.

Criticism

Ted Galen Carpenter of theCato Institutehas also disputed the doctrine, noting that while Communist movements tend to depose rival authoritarians, the traditional authoritarian regimes supported by the US came to power by overthrowing democracies. He thus concludes that while Communist regimes are more difficult to eradicate, traditional autocratic regimes "pose the more lethal threat to functioning democracies."

See also

• Jeane Kirkpatrick
• Big stick diplomacy
• The Heritage Foundation
• Reagan Doctrine
• Realpolitik
• Rollback