善隣外交の形成と展開 : 史学史的考察

This essay is a brief historiographical analysis of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy as revealed by generations of studies on the subject. The essay points out three schools, orthodox, realist, and revisionist, and discusses how their respective explanations contributed to our understanding of the policy. The focus is particularly on the second and the third schools, which present often mutually conflicting interpretations regarding motives and consequences of the Good Neighbor policy. While the former emphasizes the constraints policy makers faced and the difficult search they were engaged in for formulating an effective policy, the latter focues on economic motives behind the policy and the subsequently established unequal relationship in favor of the United States. As a way for bridging the gap between the two interpretations, the paper points out the importance for U.S. policy makers of establishing or at least partially preserving a liberal Wilsonian order in the Western Hemisphere in the increasingly closed world of power politics and 'radical' economic nationalism in the 1930s. For some influential U.S. leaders, the paper suggests, particularly Cordell Hull and his State Department subordinates, such goals were integral part of their conception and implementation of the Good Neighbor policy.