Latin American nations in world politics

288 Pages·1996·8.153 MB·English

by  edited by Heraldo Muñoz and Joseph S. Tulchin

Latin American Nations in World Politics

SECOND EDITION
Latin American
Nations in
World Politics
edited by
Heraldo Muñoz
and Joseph S. Tulchin
íH WestviewPress
A Division of HarperCollinsZWVzsAers
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be repro­
duced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
Copyright © 1996 by Westview Press, Inc., A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Published in 1996 in the United States of America by Westview Press, Inc., 5500 Central Avenue,
Boulder, Colorado, 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12 Hid’s Copse Road,
Cumnor Hill, Oxford 0X2 9JJ
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Latin American nations in world politics/edited by Heraldo Muñoz and
Joseph S. Tulchin.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-0872-0—ISBN 0-8133-0873-9 (pbk.)
1. Latin America—Foreign relations—1980- I. Muñoz, Heraldo.
II. Tulchin, Joseph S., 1939—
F1414.2L329 1996
327.8—dc20 96-7424
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
10 987654 321
Contents
The Dominant Themes in Latin American Foreign
Relations: An Introduction, Heraldo Muñoz 1
1 Collective Action for Democracy in the Americas,
Heraldo Muñoz 17
2 Understanding Latin American Foreign Policies,
Alberto van Klaveren 35
3 Politics, Bureaucracy, and Foreign Policy in Chile,
Manfred Wilhelmy 61
4 Cuba Adapts to a Brave New World,
Juan M. del Aguila 81
5 Central America and the United States,
Francisco Rojas Aravena and Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera 105
6 The Fate of a Small State: Ecuador in Foreign Affairs,
John D. Martz 129
7 Mexican Foreign Policy in the 1990s: Learning to Live
with Interdependence, Jorge Chabat 149
8 Continuity and Change in Argentine Foreign Policy,
Joseph S. Tulchin 165
9 The Foreign Policy of Brazil: From the Democratic Transition
to Its Consolidation, Monica Hirst 197
10 Postplantation Societies and World Order: Some Reflections
on the Caribbean Predicament, Jorge Heine 225
11 Soviet Union-Latin American Relations:
A Historical Perspective, Augusto Varas 237
About the Contributors 263
About the Book 267
Jndex 269
v

The Dominant Themes in
Latin American Foreign
Relations: An Introduction
HERALDO MUÑOZ
The profound world changes brought about by the end of the cold war in­
augurated a new period in foreign affairs, modifying the traditional
post-World War II concerns of both developed and developing countries.
The growing globalization of economic affairs, the decline of world strate­
gic confrontation, the reemergence of national and ethnic rivalries and con­
flicts, and the eruption of humanitarian crises—masses of refugees,
drought, starvation, and epidemic disease in vulnerable populations—are
but some of the characteristics of a complex international situation in which
tendencies toward integration and cooperation and tendencies that foster
fragmentation coexist. Moreover, the end of the cold war and the transfor­
mations in the world economy have led to a rethinking of international re­
lations, including academic research on Latin American foreign affairs.
These world changes have had an important impact upon Latin
American foreign relations. Some concrete issues have disappeared, while
others only have been reoriented. In the new post-cold war scenario, for
example, the salience of conventional security issues has tended to de­
cline, and economics, particularly trade, has moved much closer to the
top of the Latin American and global agenda. The United States continues
to be a key factor in Latin American foreign relations, although arguably
less so than in the immediately post-World War II era. The following brief
analysis of the evolution of the dominant themes in Latin American for­
eign relations reflects the importance of the end of the cold war as a major
historical rupture that is still reshaping the premises and priorities pre­
vailing for the past four decades.
Background Notes
International studies as a social science field is relatively new to Latin
America. Even though, exceptionally, pioneering institutions such as the
1
2 Heraldo Muñoz
Instituto de Estudios Internacionales of the Universidad de Chile and its
journal Estudios Internacionales and the Colegio de México and its publi­
cation Foro Internacional date back to the mid-1960s, only well into the
1970s did Latin America witness a rapid growth of centers, publications,
and research projects on international affairs. The development of this
field has been extremely uneven in terms of overall quality, geographic
focus, methodological rigor, and thematic orientations.1 Latin American
foreign relations, although of increasing interest to specialists and the
general public, were for a long time noticeably understudied.
Before World War II the principal line of research on Latin America's ex­
ternal relations was largely restricted to problems of international law, is­
sues in the diplomatic history of particular countries, and general de­
scriptions of the historical linkages between Latin America as a whole and
the United States or Europe. In the postwar context, international studies
emerged in the United States as an integral part of political science. In
Latin America, however, the field remained heavily influenced by a ju­
ridical perspective. Eventually, international studies in the region began
to be recognized as an autonomous academic field, beyond the scope of
political science, in which various disciplines converged.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, the study of Latin America's foreign rela­
tions experienced a substantial advance. Active and participatory foreign
policies were by then no longer the exclusive preserve of highly devel­
oped nations. Instead, middle-sized and small countries also asserted
their own positions and even influence with respect to neighboring coun­
tries and powers within or outside the region. For example, after the col­
lapse of the Portuguese colonial empire during the 1970s, Brazil devel­
oped a strong diplomatic drive toward Africa while at the same time
improving relations with oil-producing Arab countries and becoming
more active in Latin American affairs. On the other end of the spectrum,
a smaller country such as Ecuador also became more active internation­
ally as it engaged in a protracted fishing-boat dispute with the United
States and joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC). Venezuela, in turn, had active policies not only in OPEC but also
in a global context, promoting a North-South dialogue for a new world
economic order.
Both cooperation and conflict became more plausible as Latin American
countries sought to define and advance their national interests within the
hemisphere and even beyond it. The war between Argentina and Great
Britain over the Malvinas Islands, the Central American conflict, and the
debt crisis, among other situations of the late 1970s and early 1980s, re­
vealed both the importance of attempting to understand the factors that
affect the external behavior of regional states and the necessity of ex­
panding scientific research on Latin America's foreign relations. As a re­