Latin American States as International Actors

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Latin American States as International Actors

• Capabilities, Nationalism and Policy Making
  Structure

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Who is the Highwayman?
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I. CAPABILITIES OF LATIN AMERICAN STATES
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Capabilities Geography

• Variability in size
• Natural barriers
• Vast Empty Spaces
• Relative isolation from major geopolitical events

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Capabilities Population

• 1810 - 20 million in the entire region
• 1900 60 million
• 1970 300 million
• 2000 600 million

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Capabilities Social Dimensions

• Gaps between the classes great
• Limited social mobility
• Skin color and class strongly correlated
• Class conflict can limit coherent foreign policy

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Capabilities Political Dimensions

• Instability makes countries vulnerable
• Mexico in the early twentieth century
• Venezuela during the 1960s
• Argentina in the 1980s
• Instability also makes coherent foreign policy
  difficult

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Capabilities Military

• Class structure usually replicated in the
  military
• Limited social mobility
• Different social classes dominate within
  different services
• Can impact of combat effectiveness of the
  countrys armed forces
• Training missions from great powers
• Near nuclear capability

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Capabilities Economic

• Raw materials
• ISI efforts only partially successful
• Technology
• Debt

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II. NATIONALISM

• CLASSICAL EXPRESSION GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS IN
  WHICH INDIVIDUALS IDENTIFY THEMSELVES WITH AND
  GIVE SUPREME LOYALTY TO THE ABSTRACTION OF THE
  NATION

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NATIONALISM EARLY EXPRESSION

• Criollos vs. peninsulares
• Brazil loyalty to members of the Braganza family
• Simón Bolívar and Gran Colombia
• Liberalism as nationalism in early 19th century
  Latin America

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Modernization Nationalism

• Modernism usually implies catch up with the
  North Atlantic
• Nativism reaction to modernism
• Anti-Yankeeism
• Economic nationalism
• Military socialism
• Revolutionary nationalism

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Post-Cold War Nationalism

• Strengthen democracy
• Regional cooperation agreements
• Free trading systems
• Anti-drug, anti-arms smuggling
• Continuing concern with the United States

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Nationalism and the New States

• Island Caribbean
• Guayana

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III. Foreign Policy Decision Structure of the
Latin American States
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Primacy of Domestic Politics

• Concern for social justice
• Concern for economic autonomy
• Concern with technological advancement
• Historic overlay of great power conflicts on the
  region

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Changing Domestic Input Channels

• Traditional oligarchy long monopolized foreign
  policy
• New industrialists broke the monopoly of
  traditional oligarchy
• Labor unions usually in alliance with the
  industrialists
• Peasants and urban poor clamored for improved
  socio-economic conditions
• Roman Catholic church

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Decision-making Agents

• 19th century foreign policy highly personalistic
• Caudillos
• Barão de Rio Branco
• Personalism continued throughout the twentieth
  century
• Foreign Ministers usually make day to day policy
• Other bureaucracies such as the Foreign Trade
  Institutes

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Quality of Latin American Foreign Services Varies

• Mexico and Argentina have respectable foreign
  services
• Smaller and medium countries have often had
  highly politicized foreign services
• Example of Venezuela in the transition from the
  Pérez Jiménez dictatorship to Punto Fijo democracy

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Quality of Latin American ForeignBrasil

• Itamaraty of Brazil is the most professional
• Brazilian territory and international status
  advanced over past century by Itamaraty
• National examinations
• Entrace based on merit but traditional sectors
  have had advantages
• Concern over access to high quality education
  excluding minorities