"A fascinating insider¿s account.... Heilman provides frank insights into the US government¿s attempt to create development through its aid program." --Erick Langer, Georgetown University After Bolivia had received more than $4.7 billion from the US government to support 70 years of development efforts, why would Evo Morales abruptly expel USAID from the country in May 2013? The answer, alleges Lawrence Heilman, is rooted in a complex slice of history beginning with US assistance to Bolivia during World War II. Heilman explores that history from the perspectives of both the US and Bolivia, presenting a tapestry of mutual benefits and conflicting interests. He appraises the ideas and personalities that determined US foreign aid policies/programs across successive administrations; the political and economic context that shaped Bolivia¿s development aspirations; and the goals/strategies of the AID mission in Bolivia that guided its decisions about specific projects. The result is an in-depth picture of USAID in one country, but also important insights into US aid policy overall. Lawrence C. Heilman is research associate in the Anthropology Department at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He served twenty years with USAID as a senior foreign service officer.

During the most idealistic years of John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress development program, Bolivia was the highest per capita recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America. Nonetheless, Washington's modernization programs in early 1960s' Bolivia ended up on a collision course with important sectors of the country’s civil society, including radical workers, rebellious students, and a plethora of rightwing and leftwing political parties. In From Development to Dictatorship, Thomas C. Field Jr. reconstructs the untold story of USAID’s first years in Bolivia, including the country’s 1964 military coup d’état.Field draws heavily on local sources to demonstrate that Bolivia’s turn toward anticommunist, development-oriented dictatorship was the logical and practical culmination of the military-led modernization paradigm that provided the liberal underpinnings of Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. In the process, he explores several underappreciated aspects of Cold War liberal internationalism: the tendency of "development" to encourage authoritarian solutions to political unrest, the connection between modernization theories and the rise of Third World armed forces, and the intimacy between USAID and CIA covert operations. Challenging the conventional dichotomy between ideology and strategy in international politics, From Development to Dictatorship engages with a growing literature on development as a key rubric for understanding the interconnected processes of decolonization and the Cold War.

This report addresses the ongoing social, political, and economic challenges underway in Bolivia and presents a clear set of recommendations for the U.S. government. Gamarra argues that with ethnic, regional, and political tensions in Bolivia on the rise, Washingtons current wait and see approach to the Morales government is no longer adequate. Gamarra encourages the U.S. government to redirect its policy toward Bolivia with an emphasis on preservation of democratic process and conflict prevention.

Presents a study of the obstacles encountered by neoliberalism and market democracy in Bolivia. This book explores the problems faced by governments in reproducing global strategies at the national level, the tensions between markets and democracy, state restructuring, citizenship and property rights.

After Bolivia had received more than 4.7 billion from the US government to support 70 years of development efforts, why would Evo Morales abruptly expel USAID from the country in May 2013? The answer, alleges Lawrence Heilman, is rooted in a complex slice of history beginning with US assistance to Bolivia during World War II. Heilman explores that history from the perspectives of both the US and Bolivia, presenting a tapestry of mutual benefits and conflicting interests. He appraises the ideas and personalities that determined US foreign aid policies/programs across successive administrations.