The Cold War Origins of Global IR. The Rockefeller Foundation and Realist Theory in Latin America

Abstract

This article questions and partially refutes three arguments about the history of international relations (IR) as a discipline. The first argument has been raised in the literature about global IR, which argues that the discipline mirrors the power gap that characterizes international politics. The second argument is that classical realist IR theory reached the zenith of its influence in the 1950s thanks to the support that Hans J. Morgenthau and his likes received from the Rockefeller Foundation. The third is that the history of the social sciences in Latin America can be told without considering foreign donors. This article shows that the patronage granted by the Rockefeller Foundation as the International Studies Center at the Colegio de México opened its doors in 1960 explains the division between IR and political science and its emphasis on realist IR theory and area studies. Two explanations account for the donor’s impact: the dexter use of conditionality and the legitimacy that those conditions had from in the recipient’s point of view. The donor changed Mexican and possibly Latin American IR.

Keywords

• history of the socials sciences
• history of international studies
• transnational actors
• philanthropic foundations
• legitimate domination