Seeds of Stability

Ethan B. Kapstein holds the Arizona Centennial Chair at Arizona State University, where he is affiliated with the McCain Institute for International Leadership, and is also Associate Director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Program, based at Princeton University. He is co-author (with John Busby) of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013), which won the Don K. Price Award for best book on Science, Technology and Environmental Studies from the American Political Science Association.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. From Grievance Theory to Reformist Intervention: 2. Grievance theory and US foreign policy; 3. The strategy of reformist intervention; Part II. Promoting Land Reform: Success and Failure: 4. Land to the tiller in the early Cold War: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Italy; 5. Land reform as counterinsurgency policy: the Philippines and South Vietnam; 6. Land reform and social revolution in Latin America: 1952–90; 7. Iran: did land reform backfire?; Part III. Looking Ahead: 8. Land and conflict in the twenty-first century; 9. The future of reformist intervention.

'Kapstein's ambitious study represents a landmark contribution to the study of US post-war intervention in the developing world. Focusing on economic reform - and especially land reform - Kapstein shows through meticulous archival work and riveting case studies that the US sought to promote reform in an effort stabilize friendly governments and stem peasant uprisings. The book is a must-read for students of foreign policy, diplomacy, development, and land reform.' Michael Albertus, University of Chicago