"Dictatorships and Double Standards" is an essay byJeane Kirkpatrick published in the November 1979 issue ofCommentary magazine, which criticized theforeign policy of theCarter administration.[1] It is also the title of a 270-page book written by Kirkpatrick in 1982.[2]
The article inCommentary magazine in 1979 is credited with leading directly to Kirkpatrick's becoming an adviser toRonald Reagan and thus her appointment asUnited States Ambassador to the United Nations.[3][4] Hence, the views expressed in Kirkpatrick's essay influenced theforeign policy of theReagan administration, particularly with regard to Latin America.[5]
Kirkpatrick argued that by demanding rapid liberalization in traditionallyautocratic countries, the Carter administration and previous administrations had delivered those countries toanti-American opposition groups that proved more repressive than the governments they overthrew. She further accused the administration of a "double standard" in that it had never applied its rhetoric on the necessity of liberalization to the affairs ofCommunist governments.
The essay compares traditional autocracies and Communist regimes:
[Traditional autocrats] do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope....[Revolutionary Communist regimes] claim jurisdiction over the whole life of the society and make demands for change that so violate internalized values and habits that inhabitants flee by the tens of thousands.
Kirkpatrick concluded that while the United States should encourage liberalization and democracy in autocratic countries, it should not do so when the government is facing violent overthrow and should expect gradual change rather than immediate transformation.
AFL–CIO'sTom Kahn criticized conceptual problems and strategic consequences in Kirkpatrick's analysis. In particular, Kahn suggested that policy shouldpromote democracy even in the countries dominated bySoviet communism. Kahn argued that the Polish labor-unionSolidarity deserved United States support and even in its first years demonstrated thatcivil society could expand and that freelabor unions could be organized despite Communist regimes. Kirkpatrick's analysis of Communism underestimated the democratic potential of the working class.[6]
Ted Galen Carpenter of theCato Institute noted that while Communist movements tend to depose rival authoritarians, the traditional authoritarian regimes supported by the United States came to power by overthrowing democracies. Thus, he concludes that while Communist regimes are more difficult to eradicate, traditional autocratic regimes "pose the more lethal threat to functioning democracies".[7]