CH Latin American International Relations

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[CN] Chapter 10

[CH] Latin American International Relations

[A] Thinking about International Relations

Political science students who take courses in international relations (IR) quickly learn the moral of Thucydides’ “The Melian Dialogues”: The strong do what they will; the weak do what they must. Applying this dictum to Latin America gives rise to a series of complications. One is that not all Latin American states are equally strong or weak. Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and now Venezuela all are at least “middle powers,” on a par with Canada, Spain, or Australia. Cuba has punched far above its weight in international affairs for a half-century now, thanks to its symbolic importance as a revolutionary regime and the exceptional abilities of Fidel Castro as a politician. Were Colombia, the third most populous state in the region, ever to overcome its grave internal problems, it, too, might accede to the ranks of middling powers. Then there are the rest: small, poor states that have few resources to bring to the global table. Before dismissing them as lacking international importance, though, we must recall that “weak” and “poor” are relative concepts. These states interact with one another, not just with bigger powers. Presumably their behavior among their peers reflects the more equal distribution of capacity among the actors.

To talk sensibly about Latin American states as international actors and of the international ties of the region and the states that compose it demands a multifaceted approach. To begin with, it is necessary to review the basic themes used in the study of politics among nations. Because the international political system has different traits than any national system, the analysis of IR uses different concepts and has various perspectives. From this foundation, the chapter moves on to the relations between the states of the region and the world’s great powers—most obviously the United States—then considers relations among the Latin American states before examining some contemporary trends.

[A] The Basics of International Relations

International politics are literally anarchic: there is no central governing authority in the international system. Because there is no central authority, there is no body responsible for enforcing laws. And because there is neither an officially designated law enforcement mechanism, nor a law-making or law-adjudicating one either, every actor in the international political system has to look out for itself. This is called the principle of self-help and it is the only sure means of defense in a war of each-against-all.

What causes the international system to work this way is the concept of national sovereignty. States, sometimes called nation-states, are the principal actors in the international system, and every state, great or small, possesses sovereignty. That means that no one can interfere with the internal operations of a state. States have governments that make laws that their citizens can be forced to obey; but there is no global government that makes laws that states must follow.

There is, though, global governance. In practice, states cooperate on some issues and generally act according to widely accepted principles. This gives an element of order to the international system and makes it possible for states and their citizens to carry out many daily tasks with a reasonable degree of security. However, this is not law but convention.

Thinking about international relations divides into two analytical schools: realism, the more influential, especially among practitioners; and liberal internationalism (see Table 10.1). Realism emphasizes power, national interest, and conflict between and among states. Liberal internationalism stresses cooperation, the role of nonstate actors in world affairs, and the part taken by international governmental organizations (IGOs)—for example, the United Nations—and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent.[1] Both schools work from abstract models and each describes some parts of international politics better than the other does. So combining the most relevant aspects of realism and idealism is generally necessary to get a thorough, accurate picture of reality.

Table 10.1. Realism and Liberal Internationalism: A Quick Comparative Overview

Source: Adapted from Eric Mintz, David Close, and Osvaldo Croci, Politics, Power and the Common Good: An Introduction to Political Science. 2nd. ed. Toronto: Pearson Educational Publishing, 2008. 489.

Realism argues that states are the actors that count in international politics and that national security is the preeminent concern of states. Because there is no law to constrain power, every state has to build and preserve as much capacity as it can to protect itself and promote its national interest. Accordingly, a state has to accumulate power, which is the ability to get what it wants out of its relations with other states. Thus realism stresses the conflictual side of international relations and sees this struggle taking place within the international system. How power is distributed within that system influences how states relate to each other.

Logically and empirically, the international system can have one of three basic structures, depending on how power is concentrated: multipolar, bipolar, and unipolar. In a multipolar system, power is relatively dispersed among four or more states.[2] An example of a multipolar international system is the balance-of-power system that prevailed in the nineteenth century. There were several relatively equally powerful states that dominated international affairs: Great Britain, France, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. As long as no state or bloc of states became too powerful, the system was stable and peace was maintained. However, the system broke down with the start of World War I (1914–1918) and did not regain its former effectiveness in the interwar period.

A bipolar system is the second possibility. The best example of this system was the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1946–1991). During that period, states aligned with either Washington or Moscow. While neutrality was imaginable, the realities of the situation made choosing sides almost mandatory. This was certainly so in Latin America. Until the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Washington was unchallenged. Moscow gained a second ally for a while after the success of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in 1979, although the Sandinistas were careful to maintain solid ties with the West, even if the United States government was hostile.

Finally, there can be a unipolar system, in which one state dominates the rest of the world. Something like this existed after the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), when the United States emerged unquestionably as the world’s preeminent power. The defining characteristic of this system is that the only superpower can and does act unilaterally. In bipolar system, one superpower countervails the other, while in a multipolar system a state needs to line up allies. Washington’s failure to consolidate a rapid victory in Iraq suggests that the international system’s unipolar moment may have passed. However, in the western hemisphere, the United States is still the only superpower.

Besides a global international system there are regional subsystems. Latin America is part of the inter-American system, but there is also a purely Latin American system, which excludes the United States. A state such as Brazil can have middling importance on the world stage but be a significant actor in inter-American affairs and a substantial power within Latin America.

Where realists focus on conflict, liberal internationalists concentrate on cooperation. Like realists, idealists acknowledge that states usually cooperate because it is in their interest to do so. Among the policy areas where interstate cooperation exists are certain technical areas (civil aviation or telecommunications), economics and trade (the World Trade Organization), and national security (various collective security organizations, such as NATO). The growth of problems that cannot be addressed within the territorial boundaries of a single state, like climate change or disease control, suggests that international governance will grow. Latin America has a number of regional IGOs, including the Organization of American States, the Pan-American Health Organization, the Sistema Económico Latinoamericano (SELA), as well as several regional and sub-regional trading blocs, such as Mercosur. There is also the recently formed (2008) Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), which includes a South American Security Council, a collective security organization. On the whole, however, international cooperation within the region has been slow to develop beyond the bilateral level.

When dealing with international politics, then, we need to work with different expectations. This is true even when our interest is foreign policy—the choices a state makes about how to relate with other international actors. At one level, foreign policy is like any other public policy. It is made by a government with specific priorities and values. And like all public policy, foreign policy occasionally bumps up against unbending reality and has to change its goals and methods.

Nevertheless, foreign policy brings special challenges. The most obvious of these emerges when foreign policy deals with high politics: issues of war and peace, national defense, and at times even national survival. Even when the stakes are not as high, dealing with other states presents special challenges (for example, power disparities and irreconcilable agendas). Although similar problems present themselves in the domestic domain, governments generally have more tools at their disposal in seeking an acceptable solution. This can make foreign policy a particular challenge for governments with limited resources.

[B] Latin America and International Relations Theory

When you study international relations in the United States, you learn a lot about great powers and how they act because the United States has been one of the world’s great powers for nearly 70 years. The international politics of great powers also receive substantial attention in Canada, a middle power, because that country has been very active in world affairs for more than 60 years. As a result, most North Americans have a perspective on international affairs that reflects being at or close to the heart of international politics. Things are different in Latin America.

Since independence, the states of Latin America have been parts of the international system. However, although they are legally the equals of any other state, geographical marginality—former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said that nothing important happens south of 40 degrees north latitude, roughly where Washington, DC, is located—combines with having no substantial world powers within the region to relegate the nations of Latin America to the sidelines in international affairs. Most of the time, Latin American states are the objects of international action and not the subjects defining world politics.

Given the differences between North America and Latin America, it would be surprising if they did not have different perspectives on international politics. This is especially true since the academic study of international relations has for more than 60 years been dominated by practitioners from the United States. Arlene Tickner, a political scientist, has surveyed academic international relations in Latin America and the Caribbean and found that they differed from the US-influenced norm in several important ways.[3]

First, although no one questioned the lawlessness of the international order, Latin Americans saw a hierarchical structure to world politics: there were the great powers, the core of the system, at the top, followed by a slightly larger number of second-level, supporting players, and then everybody else followed. Second, dependency theory has had a marked influence, reflecting the sensitivity of those in the region (and elsewhere in the Third World) to the reality of often having your nation’s fate substantially controlled by foreigners. Evidence of the impact of dependency thinking is found in the concept of autonomy. Although it has much in common with sovereignty, a keystone of conventional IR, autonomy gives greater stress to the ways the international system and foreign actors impinge on a state’s ability to develop economically. There are other examples of how those on the margins of the world adapt mainstream concepts to conform better to their realties (see Text Box 10.1.). Finally, Tickner notes that Latin American scholars have shown little interest in the intradisciplinary debates that occasionally rock academic IR in North America and Western Europe.

Text Box 10.1. Making Realism More Realistic

The academic study of international relations has European roots, but its greatest growth came in the United States after World War II. Its concepts revolve around the high politics of war and peace, and the objects it studies are great powers whose actions can change the shape of the world. What does this have to say to Latin America or any other poor, marginalized part of the world? The theories of peripheral realism and subaltern realism are two responses to this question.

Carlos Escudé of Argentina developed the concept of peripheral realism. He argues that there is a hierarchy of power in the international system, and while a very few states, such as the United States, set the rules, most have the rules imposed on them As a result, for these peripheral states, realism means avoiding conflict with great powers and defining the national interest in terms of development.[4]

Subaltern realism is associated with Mohammed Ayoob, a native of India who teaches in the United States. The essence of this concept is that among weaker states, domestic concerns play a significant part in shaping international goals and postures. Ayoob thus stresses the interplay of domestic and international factors in explaining how the weak act in world affairs.[5]

Both authors suggest that traditional perspectives in academic IR and in actual foreign policy-making err in assuming that all states have identical aims as international actors. Esucudé and Ayoob point out that those with less power necessarily tie their foreign objectives to internal goals. However, this leaves open the question of how peripheral or subaltern states act when dealing with each other.

[A] International Politics within Latin America