Modernizing a Friendly Tyrant: US Public Diplomacy and Sociopolitical Change in Francoist Spain
The United States’ attitude toward the Franco regime gradually shifted, from rejection and impelling of the international condemnation of the Spanish dictatorship during the immediate post-World War II period, to a rather wary acceptance. As the United States’ differences from the Soviet Union began being accentuated, some American policymakers—especially in the Pentagon—began to appreciate the value of the strategic enclave in the Iberian Peninsula and the dictatorship’s anticommunism. Thus, the gradual advance toward the Cold War facilitated the creation of closer ties—which only months before would have seemed totally contra natura—between the democratic regime in Washington and the Franco dictatorship. The bilateral accords signed in 1953 allowed the implantation of U.S military bases in Spain in exchange for economic aid, military hardware and technical assistance.1 The goal was to bring Spain in to the security system constructed in Europe to serve as a bulwark against any possible communist offensive. The Spanish authorities agreed to this foreign presence in exchange for international legitimization and financing for their crippled economy. They even went so far as to fantasize that the American aid would be the equivalent of what the Marshall Plan was for other European countries. However, neither the timing nor the objectives were equivalent: in the American power’s initial calculations, the aim was neither the modernization of the Iberian country nor a hypothetical democratizing process.
Awkward Alliances. Modernisation Theory and United States Foreign Policy Towards Franco’s Spain in the 1960s
ABSTRACT A body of literature on Cold War international history has studied the influence of modernisation theory in United States foreign relations with its authoritarian allies in the Third World during the 1950s and 1960s. However, this area of research has been much less interested in those Washington-friendlydictatorships that, as in the case of Francisco Franco’s regime in Spain, do not fit into the Third World analytical framework. This analysis assesses the contribution of modernisations doctrine principles to American foreign policy towards the Spanish dictatorship in the 1960s and considers how this theory provided the conceptual tools to justify the American collaboration with the Franco regime in the name of development, security, and long-term democratisation. It examines the role of modernisation as, on one hand, an interpretative framework for Spain’s economic and social evolution during that decade and, on the other, an instument of political legitimisation serving American strategic interests. In this way, this work sheds light on the ideological and intellectual underpinnings of the American alliance with the Franco dictatorship in a period of great challenges and transformations in Spain.
Morphological characterization of Eustrongylides sp. larvae (Nematoda, Dioctophymatoidea) parasite of Rhinella marina (Amphibia: Bufonidae) from Eastern Amazonia.
Absctract Eustrongylides spp. nematodes have birds as final hosts and uses other vertebrates as intermediate/paratenic host (fish, amphibians and reptiles) and have zoonotic potential. In amphibians, the larvae may be located in the subcutaneous tissues, liver and mesentery, between the muscle fibres, especially in the lower limbs. Rhinella marina, which is widely observed in Brazil, has exhibited complex diversity in its helminth fauna, reflecting the unique habitat of the Amazon biome. For the first time, this study describes the morphological aspects of third-stage larvae of Eustrongylides sp. in Rhinella marina from Santa Cruz do Ararí, Marajó Archipelago, Eastern Amazonia, using light and scanning electron microscopy.