2013/01/01 by Stephen Macekura · 74 citations
Social Sciences · #Economic growth #Economics #Foreign policy #International Development and Aid #Law #Memorandum #Political science #Politics #Prosperity #Public administration #World War II
paper · doi:10.1002/polq.12000
published in Political Science Quarterly 128(1), 127-160 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
IN HIS 1949 INAUGURAL ADDRESS, President Harry S. Truman enunciated a new direction for American foreign policy. The fourth point of his speech proclaimed a “bold, new program” to redress the economic backwardness and political instability that plagued underdeveloped regions of the world. It called for an innovative policy to replace the “old imperialism,” which Truman defined as “exploitation for foreign profit,” with a constructive project designed to develop foreign domestic productive capabilities as a means to foster global prosperity and stability. Truman stated that experts from the United States should share their “technical knowledge” with underdeveloped countries to create a domestic environment in which collaborative efforts of private capital and local labor could facilitate economic growth and raise standards of living. Truman's “Point Four program” extended his “fair deal” to the development of the underdeveloped world.1 Though Truman deemed his program “bold” and “new,” in reality, the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt set a series of key precedents for U.S. policy toward the underdeveloped world in the late 1930s and early 1940s.2 Roosevelt established the Institute for Inter-American Affairs (IIAA) in 1939 to work collaboratively with Latin American governments to oversee the extraction of raw materials, increase domestic production in cooperating nations, and combat Nazi inroads into the New World. During World War II, the U.S. government expanded the IIAA to facilitate the production of materials necessary for the war effort. The United States hosted the 1944 Bretton Woods conference to create two supranational economic organizations—the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund—to promote post-war stability. By the end of the military conflicts in Europe and Asia, the United States slowly began the arduous processes of relief, reconstruction, and ultimately, development of an international system undergoing profound transformation.