18 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
notions. Recently there has been some critical writings by dissenting American social scientists (dissenting within the existing system of power-relationships) and radical writers who advocate changes in the existing system.8 Nonetheless,, the predominant trait of this tradition is to preserve the system rather than make changes on a global scale and facilitate socio-economic development in the developing countries. The preservation of existing dominant values and roles9 is closely linked to a frantic search for security and influence, and protection of foreign investments.
The search for security,, a concept not easily and rationally definable, has led to a tremendous growth of literature on military strategy, capability analysis and deterrence theories. The concept of national interest has become interchangeable with the concept of national security: the practice of explaining foreign policy (as well as domestic policy) in terms of national security. The foreign policy analysis in such circumstances focuses attention on description and explanation of^'vital^ and ^peripheral" security interests. And these interests are global. Any change in the status quo any where in the world, if it affects the United States' so called ^security interests" meets resistance from the US government. Even changes in the internal social structure of other countries are perceived as potential threat to its e ^security interests". Enough examples are available of the United States adopting direct or clandestine measures to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries, chiefly Latin American but also West European (as in the recent Italian elections) to prevent socio-economic changes from taking place.
Historial Background
What was earlier called the Anglo-Saxon tradition has, in the course of the past thirty years, tended to become predominantly an American tradition. Generally concepts and models developed in, this tradition, mostly in the United States, are used for explaining and describing a foreign policy of a developed or a developing country. The same textbooks are taught all over the world, written mostly by the Anglo-Saxons. Very few attempts have been made at an alternative approach which reflects the historic conditions and is based on existing social, economic and political structures in the developing countries. An understanding of the present mechanism of global dominance calls for explanation of the historic genesis of the existing international system,10 which is the starting-point to observe the ^deviation" in the behaviour of the developing countries from the established Anglo-Saxon tradition. Before formulating any hypothesis it is essential to examine, in brief, the historic conditions and the existing global dominance system.
With few exceptions almost all the developing nations, had been colonies of the western powers including the United States.11 Latin America was colonized and exploited first by Portugal (Portugal itself apparently becoming a colony of Great Britain around the