Dependent Economic Development, Aid Dependence on the United States, and Democratic Breakdown in the Third World

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Abstract
The relationship between two kinds of dependency linkages and the stability of developing democracies is investigated in global perspective utilizing quantitative cross-national statistical analysis considered in the context of descriptive historical information. Hypotheses that explain breakdowns of democracy in developing countries as a result of the process of dependent economic development are not supported. A quite strong inverse time-lagged association is observed between aid dependence on the United States—especially in regard to military aid—and the stability of democratic regimes in the Third World. This correlation is interpreted as reflecting in large part the influence of the aggressive Cold War containment doctrine espoused by the Johnson and Nixon administrations, which encouraged preemptive authoritarian regime transformation in the interest of maintaining stable pro-American, anti-Communist governments in Third World democracies that were of strategic geopolitical value to the United States.

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