Determinants of Third World Hostility Toward the United States

Abstract

The article examines a set of hypothesized determinants of hostile foreign policy stances emanating from the Third World in an attempt to derive simple models accounting for their targeting toward the international system in general and toward the United States in particular, as well as for the ratio of the latter to the former. The first two classes of hostility seem to obey very similar causal mechanisms. Relative deprivation assessed through intertemporal comparisons of one's value positions is found to be a good predictor of hostility as are defense expenditures and, to a lesser extent, domestic instability. The proportion of hostility preferentially directed toward the United States has been less successfully predicted although links of a military-political character would seem to be a more likely determinant than those of a more economic nature.