Interventionism refers to a political practice of intervention, particularly to the practice of governments to interfere in political affairs of other countries, staging
military or trade interventions.
Economic interventionism
Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of ...
refers to a different practice of intervention, one of economic policy at home.
Military intervention as the main issue, has been defined in the context of
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such ...
as "the deployment of military personnel across recognized boundaries for the purpose of determining the political authority structure in the target state." Interventions may just be focused on altering political authority structures, but also be conducted for humanitarian purposes, as well as debt collection.
Interventionism has played a major role in the foreign policies of Western powers, particularly during and after the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...
. The
New Imperialism
In historical contexts, New Imperialism characterizes a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States, and Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Com
The period featured an unprecedented pursuit of over ...
era saw numerous interventions by Western nations in the
Global South
The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...
, including the
Banana Wars. Modern interventionism grew out of
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
policies, where the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
intervened in nations around the world to counter any influence held there by the other nation. Historians have noted that interventionism has always been a contentious political issue among public opinion of countries which engaged in interventions.
According to a dataset by Alexander Downes, 120 leaders were removed through foreign-imposed regime change between 1816 and 2011.
A 2016 study by
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
political scientist Dov Haim Levin (who now teaches at the
University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hon ...
) found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions. Multilateral interventions that include territorial governance by foreign institutions also include cases like
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-w ...
and
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...
, and have been proposed (but were rejected) for the
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
. A 2021 review of the existing literature found that foreign interventions since World War II tend overwhelmingly to fail to achieve their purported objectives.
Foreign-imposed regime change
Studies by Alexander Downes, Lindsey O'Rourke, and Jonathan Monten indicate that foreign-imposed regime change seldom reduces the likelihood of civil war, violent removal of the newly imposed leader,
and the probability of conflict between the intervening state and its adversaries, and does not increase the likelihood of
democratization
Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...
unless regime change comes with pro-democratic institutional changes in countries with favorable conditions for democracy. Downes argues:
"The strategic impulse to forcibly oust antagonistic or non-compliant regimes overlooks two key facts. First, the act of overthrowing a foreign government sometimes causes its military to disintegrate, sending thousands of armed men into the countryside where they often wage an insurgency against the intervener. Second, externally-imposed leaders face a domestic audience in addition to an external one, and the two typically want different things. These divergent preferences place imposed leaders in a quandary: taking actions that please one invariably alienates the other. Regime change thus drives a wedge between external patrons and their domestic protégés or between protégés and their people."
Research by Nigel Lo, Barry Hashimoto, and
Dan Reiter
Dan Reiter (born 29 September 1967, Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American political scientist. He is currently the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor at the Department of Political Science at Emory University.
Education
Reiter received his B.A. with hon ...
has contrasting findings, as they find that interstate "peace following wars last longer when the war ends in foreign-imposed regime change." However, research by Reiter and Goran Peic finds that foreign-imposed regime change can raise the probability of civil war.
In Africa
Among African nations, Nigeria has shown the will to intervene in the affairs of other sub Saharan African countries since independence. It is said that one of the reasons
Yakubu Gowon was removed from office had been the squandering of Nigeria’s resources in such far-away lands as Grenada and Guyana, with no returns, economic or political for Nigeria. The philosophy of subsequent military governments in Nigeria was that in an increasingly interdependent world, a country cannot be an island.
See also
*
Counterinsurgency
Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionari ...
*
Economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they ...
*
Embargo
*
Foreign electoral intervention
Foreign electoral interventions are attempts by governments, covertly or overtly, to influence elections in another country.
Academic studies Intervention measurements
Theoretical and empirical research on the effect of foreign electoral inte ...
*
Foreign interventions by China
*
Foreign interventions by Cuba
*
Foreign interventions by the United States
The United States has been involved in numerous foreign interventions throughout its history. By the broadest definition of military intervention, the US has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2019, with half of these ...
*
Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War
*
Gun boat diplomacy
*
Humanitarian intervention
Humanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state (or states) across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Human ...
*
International military intervention against ISIL
*
International isolation
*
International relations theory
International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain causal and constitutive effects in international politics. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories a ...
*
Isolationism
Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entangl ...
*
Liberal internationalism
*
Military occupation
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
*
Multilateralism
*
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and co ...
*
Non-interventionism
*
Pacification
Pacification may refer to:
The restoration of peace through a declaration or peace treaty:
*Pacification of Ghent, an alliance of several provinces of the Netherlands signed on November 8, 1576
*Treaty of Berwick (1639), or ''Pacification of Berwi ...
*
Peacekeeping
Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
Within the United ...
*
Peace enforcement
*
Peacemaker
Peacemaker or The Peacemaker (in various forms) may refer to:
Individuals and groups
* UN Peacemaker, a project of the UN to support international peacemakers and mediators
* Peace makers, a list of contemporary individuals and organizations inv ...
*
Peace makers
*
Peacemaking
*
Police action
*
Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present)
*
Sakoku
was the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and nearly a ...
*
Unilateralism
__NOTOC__
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...
*
White man's burden
Further reading
* Melissa M. Lee. 2020. ''Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State''. Princeton University Press.
References
External links
Interventionism (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Empirical Knowledge on Foreign Military Intervention (Oxford Encyclopedia of Empirical International Relations Theory)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Interventionism (politics)
Foreign intervention
Geopolitics
International relations theory
Political science terminology