This book explores the impact of Latin America's political culture on the international politics of the region. It offers a general account of traditional Iberian political culture while examining how relations among states in the hemisphere -- where the United States has been the central actor -- have evolved over time. The authors assess the degree of consistency between domestic and international political behavior. The assessments are supported by case studies.
This ambitious book offers a clear and unified framework for understanding political change across Latin America. The impact of U.S. hegemony and the global economic system on the region is widely known, and scholars and advocates alike point to Latin America's vulnerability in the face of external forces. In spite of such foreign pressure, however, individual countries continue to chart their own courses, displaying considerable variation in political and economic life. Looking broadly across the Western Hemisphere, with examples from Brazil, the Southern Cone, the Andes, and Central America, Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin identify general rules that explain how international and domestic politics interact in specific contexts. The detailed, accessible case studies cast new light on such central problems as neoliberal economic reform, democratization, human rights, regional security, environmental degradation, drug trafficking, and immigration. And they consider not only what actors, institutions, and ideas matter in particular political contexts, but when, where, and how they matter. By dividing issues into the domains of "high" and "low" politics, and differentiating between short-term problems and more permanent concerns, they create an innovative typology for analyzing a wide variety of political events and trends.
Since the early 1980s Latin America has seen a definitive shift toward civilian rule. Significant trade, fiscal and monetary reforms have accompanied these changes, exposing previously statist economies to the forces of the market. Despite the conventional notion that liberal economic reforms sprang out of necessity, as opposed to an enlightened set of policy choices, the combination of civilian regimes and market-based strategies has proved to be resilient. Economic and political hardships remain, including a debt default in Argentina and an attempted coup in Venezuela; however, the defining themes of open market and liberal politics still dominate in the region.
Until the late 1980s, Japan was the only country in Asia with notable political and economic relations. Since then, however, several Asian nations have perceived growing links with the Latin American region as a means of diversifying their political and particularly economic relations while many Latin American decision-makers have increasingly recognised the strategic importance of East Asia in their foreign policy and foreign economic policy designs. This book analyses the economic, political and socio-cultural relations between Asia and Latin America and examines their growing importance in international relations. In the first part of the book the contributors look at the policies, interests and strategies of individual Asian and Latin American states, while the second part delves into the analysis of multilateral institution-building in Asia-Latin America relations,. As such, Asia and Latin America will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate scholars of comparative politics, international relations, Asian politics and Latin American politics.
First Published in 1994. Volume 6 in the 7-volume series titled Essays on Mexico, Central and South America: Scholarly Debates from the 1950s to the 1990s. The central scholarly articles concern interstate peace along with a U.S. propensity to intervene, and international structural vulnerabilities and economic asymmetries along with the significance of elite skills and choices. This title recognises that scholars have paid more attention to international economics in Latin America and seeks to balance the range study.
Using decades of their own insight into teaching undergraduate International Relations (IR) courses, leading experts offer an introduction to IR thinking throughout history in Latin America, unfolding ideas, voices, concepts and approaches from the region that can contribute to the broader Global IR discussion. The book highlights and discuss the growing possibility of a Latin American agency, defined broadly to include both material and ideational elements, in regional and international relations, covering areas where Latin America’s contributions are especially visible and relevant, such as regionalism, international law, security management, and Latin America’s relations with the outside world. This is not about exclusively "Latin American solutions to Latin American problems", but rather about contributions in which Latin Americans define the terms for understanding the issues and set the terms for the nature and scope of outside involvement. Written with verve and clarity, Latin America in Global International Relations exposes readers to the relevance of redefining and broadening IR theory. It will serve as a guide for instructors in structuring their courses and in identifying the place of Latin America in the discipline.
Drawing on the research and experience of fifteen internationally recognized Latin America scholars, this insightful text presents an overview of inter-American relations during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This unique collection identifies broad changes in the international system that have had significant affects in the Western Hemisphere, including issues of politics and economics, the securitization of U.S. foreign policy, balancing U.S. primacy, the wider impact of the world beyond the Americas, especially the rise of China, and the complexities of relationships between neighbors. Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations focuses on the near-neighbors of the United States—Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean and Central America—as well as the larger countries of South America—including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Each chapter addresses a country’s relations with the United States, and each considers themes that are unique to that country’s bilateral relations as well as those themes that are more general to the relations of Latin America as a whole. This cohesive and accessible volume is required reading for Latin American politics students and scholars alike.
With President Hu Jintao's November 2004 visit to Latin America, China signaled to the rest of the world its growing interest in the region. Many observers welcome this development, highlighting the benefits of increased trade and investment, as well as diplomatic cooperation, for both sides. But other analysts have raised concerns about the relationship's impact on Latin American competitiveness and its implications for U.S. influence in Washington's traditional backyard. In C hina's Expansion into the Western Hemisphere, experts from Latin America, China, and the United States, as well as Europe, analyze the history of this triangular relationship and the motivations of each of the major players. Several chapters focus on China's growing economic ties to the region, including Latin America's role in China's search for energy resources worldwide. Other essays highlight the geopolitical implications of Chinese hemispheric policy and set recent developments in the broader context of China's role in the developing world. Together, they provide an absorbing look at a particularly sensitive aspect of China's emergence as a world power. Contributors include Christopher Alden (London School of Economics), Robert Devlin (ECLAC), Francisco González (Johns Hopkins–SAIS), Monica Hirst (Torcuato Di Tella University), Josh Kurlantzick (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Xiang Lanxin (Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva), Luisa Palacios (Barclays), Jiang Shixue (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Barbara Stallings (Brown University), Juan Tokatlián (San Andrés University), and Zheng Kai (Fudan University).
Against the backdrop of increasing attention to energy and climate change in the presidential campaigns, recent failure of the Senate to advance the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, and preparations for this summer's G8 summit, a CFR-sponsored Independent T.
Analysts and policymakers often decry the failure of institutions to accomplish their stated purpose. Bringing together leading scholars of Latin American politics, this volume helps us understand why. The volume offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for studying weak institutions. It introduces different dimensions of institutional weakness and explores the origins and consequences of that weakness. Drawing on recent research on constitutional and electoral reform, executive-legislative relations, property rights, environmental and labor regulation, indigenous rights, squatters and street vendors, and anti-domestic violence laws in Latin America, the volume's chapters show us that politicians often design institutions that they cannot or do not want to enforce or comply with. Challenging existing theories of institutional design, the volume helps us understand the logic that drives the creation of weak institutions, as well as the conditions under which they may be transformed into institutions that matter.
