Despite the problems and omissions, approach became the developmental became the dominant approach in the 1960s to studying and recommending policies for the emerging nations. Thousands of articles and hundreds of books were writ ten about development in the Third World during this period; at the same time, almost the entire U.S. and international aid program and foreign policy toward the developing nations were based on developmental. Pour in economic aid, build infrastructure, and stimulate social modernization, the argument was, and political development and democratization would automatically and universally follow. But soon the criticisms of the developmental approach began to mount, and in the Third World, development was not working out as the theory of development had posited. By the end of the 1960s and on into the 1970s the developmental approach was under strong attack at the academic level but little of the academic criticism had much effect on the U.S. foreign aid pro- gram which continued (and continues today) much as it had before: outdated, t not very effective, and often irrelevant.