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Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War
O'Rourke's book offers a onestop shop for understanding foreign-imposed regime change. Covert Regime Change is an impressive book and required reading for anyone interested in understanding hidden power in world politics.― Political Science Quarterly
States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d'état, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups.
In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O'Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on overt cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O'Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Offensive operations aim to overthrow a current military rival or break up a rival alliance. Preventive operations seek to stop a state from taking certain actions, such as joining a rival alliance, that may make them a future security threat. Hegemonic operations try to maintain a hierarchical relationship between the intervening state and the target government. Despite the prevalence of covert attempts at regime change, most operations fail to remain covert and spark blowback in unanticipated ways.
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Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War
O'Rourke's book offers a onestop shop for understanding foreign-imposed regime change. Covert Regime Change is an impressive book and required reading for anyone interested in understanding hidden power in world politics.― Political Science Quarterly
States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d'état, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups.
In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O'Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on overt cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O'Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Offensive operations aim to overthrow a current military rival or break up a rival alliance. Preventive operations seek to stop a state from taking certain actions, such as joining a rival alliance, that may make them a future security threat. Hegemonic operations try to maintain a hierarchical relationship between the intervening state and the target government. Despite the prevalence of covert attempts at regime change, most operations fail to remain covert and spark blowback in unanticipated ways.
O'Rourke's book offers a onestop shop for understanding foreign-imposed regime change. Covert Regime Change is an impressive book and required reading for anyone interested in understanding hidden power in world politics.― Political Science Quarterly
States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d'état, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups.
In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O'Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on overt cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O'Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Offensive operations aim to overthrow a current military rival or break up a rival alliance. Preventive operations seek to stop a state from taking certain actions, such as joining a rival alliance, that may make them a future security threat. Hegemonic operations try to maintain a hierarchical relationship between the intervening state and the target government. Despite the prevalence of covert attempts at regime change, most operations fail to remain covert and spark blowback in unanticipated ways.
Lindsey A. O’Rourke is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Her research focuses on regime change, international security, and US foreign policy.
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments 1. The False Promise of Covert Regime Change 2. Causes: Why Do States Launch Regime Changes? 3. Conduct: Why Do States Intervene Covertly versus Overtly? 4. Consequences: How Effective Are Covert Regime Changes? 5. Overview of U.S.-backed Regime Changes during the Cold War 6. Rolling Back the Iron Curtain 7. Containment, Coup d'état and the Covert War in Vietnam 8. Dictators and Democrats in the Dominican Republic 9. Covert Regime Change after the Cold War Notes Index
What People are Saying About This
Joshua Rovner
Covert Regime Change is an important addition to the new literature on intelligence and international relations. Lindsey O’Rourke convincingly shows that covert action has been a regular feature of American statecraft for decades, and that the United States chooses regime change not for idealistic reasons but out of ruthless pragmatism.
Richard Betts
Covert action to change foreign governments is exceptionally controversial, hard to research, and usually explored only by journalists. All who read this book will be impressed with the depth, detail, and clarity of Lindsey O’Rourke’s analysis. No other academic study of the question tops this one.
Michael Desch
The reality of covert operations that meddle with the domestic regimes of other states, as Lindsey O'Rourke documents, is that when the secret intervention fails it becomes public, leaving the unsuccessful intervener with egg on his face and blood on his hands. Every government library from the White House to the C.I.A. needs copies of this book on their shelves.
