Fear in university policy of the United States and the Soviet Union in Guatemala and Cuba

Introduction. The United States’ and Soviet Union’s respective Americanization and Sovietization of other countries’ universities during the Cold War were motivated by political fear. Methods. While realism often accentuates political fear as a driver of hard-lined policy, this paper embraces cooperative policy of states changing their initial political goals in order to appease target states. The comparative analysis and system approach are applied in the research. Analysis. Cases from Guatemala and Cuba make it evident that Washington and Moscow had to restrain and revise their projects at universities in order to maintain friendly political relations with the elite of their target governments. This paper explores the US policy at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala and the Soviet policy at the University of Havana in Cuba during the Cold War. The academic community’s resistance to and sabotage of the transformations of the universities’ national traditions and the fear that their strategic partners could interrupt the cooperation forced Washington and Moscow to curtail their Americanization and Sovietization. Local academics were able to abandon the superpowers’ projects and reforms. The University of San Carlos rejected the establishment of social extension projects and the revisions of various courses suggested by American experts, and the University of Havana rejected the introduction of ideology-oriented disciplines of the Soviet model. Results. Political fear and the policy of appeasement led to neither the United States nor the USSR being able to achieve the Americanization or Sovietization of the target universities.