Latin America in Global International Relations

Amitav Acharya, Melisa Deciancio, Diana Tussie, Amitav Acharya, Melisa Deciancio, Diana Tussie

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367464714
• eBook ISBN: 9781000408669
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

1

Introduction

Latin America and the Caribbean in Global International Relations

Diana Tussie and Amitav Acharya

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Charles Dickens

In his 2014 presidential address to the International Studies Association, Amitav Acharya put forward a twofold challenge to students of International Relations (IR). The transformations playing out in our world are not merely “out there”. They also chime intimately on the way we build our knowledge. Indeed, the challenge caused by the outbreak of Covid-19 and the rise of emerging powers result in the quest for addressing forms of global governance. Moreover, global power shifts visibilize the action of the apparently powerless. Applied to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the theoretical model that prevailed of a defenseless object of the United States, its very own backyard where unconscionable promotion of some very nasty dictatorships flourished, has lost sway. Such shifts must necessarily be reflected in scientific decentering, the inclusion of intellectual tools that enable pluralism and inclusiveness.

By highlighting these double-fold transformations, Acharya made a call to encourage a movement beyond Western centrism in the study of IR and contribute to the making of Global International Relations (GIR). GIR is a call to bring the rest in, to question the naturalness of global order and to let new canons emerge. It is a call to change the disciplinary landscape. Left unexamined, tradition is destined to cast a shadow over our minds. Eight years later, we believe that this challenge has made significant inroads building on what had been brewing in many quarters, not least in the United States. As we write these lines the United States is seen to be losing the moral high ground to lead the world and its theorizing.

Let us start by offering the gist of our extensive argument. Of late, the field of IR has seen a growing awareness of, and dissatisfaction with, the narrow and Euro-American–centric framing of mainstream theories. To be sure, a minority of scholars ignores this trend and persists in the belief that the existing body of theoretical knowledge can be extended at large with some minor tinkering and without any serious rethinking of their fundamental assumptions. But most scholars have come to recognize and even demand a more genuine broadening and deepening of the existing knowledge, including its theories, methods and empirical base. Some earlier theoretical perspectives, such as constructivism, postcolonialism, critical theory or the English School, as well as newer ones, such as what has been called “non-Western” or “post-Western” IR, have encouraged the incorporation of the voices and writings from regions into the discussions and debates. The peculiar feature of LAC thought is that it is neither fully “Western” nor “non-Western”. As such, this feature provides an illustration of why we need to take up LAC thought and practice as part of the wider “GIR” movement at a time that world order is changing rapidly into what Amitav Acharya has termed the “Multiplex World”. GIR confronts faux universalism and explores “regional” sites of theory construction, paving the way for the intersection between history and concepts. Narrow Western paradigmatization that in fact applies to the concerns and activities of the powerful states in the world must be opened to multiple voices, experiences, knowledge and perspectives that live, act and thrive outside the West. This volume is thus an invitation to look at ourselves, at the narratives that we construct about our disciplinary history and our relationship to scientific knowledge. Perhaps the most interesting invitation we find throughout its pages relates to how we have constructed ourselves in interaction with our object of study and the academic community we are members of. Moving away but not necessarily at all times displacing Western theory, each of the contributors was challenged to rethink the theoretical and conceptual developments of IR in LAC over time, identifying ontologies and contributions. They were asked to inject indigenous ideas and insights from local practices. How do we theorize and what do we theorize on? Individual authors engage with these questions from a variety of perspectives that are guided by what they consider as important and indeed dominant. Against this backdrop, the volume presents LAC contributions that have relevance for the project of redefining and broadening theory. Along this path we take a broad view of what counts as theory. Our goal is not merely to establish what is unique or distinct in LAC. This is important no doubt, but what is even more important is to find ways to link them and compare them with more general theoretical trends and explanations. Moreover, the goal of the book is not to engage in bland theory-testing or to apply established concepts in mainstream IR about power, institutions and ideas to a LAC context and make minor adjustments to make them fit better. The goal is rather to identify and conceptualize LAC ideas, voices, analytical tools and connections on their own terms and assess their relationship with those we find in existing theory.

Knowledge production is an inherently social process rather than some kind of purely rational scientific exercise that is value- or power-neutral as feminist theories show so very vividly day by day. Critical feminist theories have offered the concept of “worlding”, in this vein, a term that stresses the fact that a situation in which we live is neither homogenized and global nor separate and local but situated at a specific place while at the same time it travels. As we write this introduction in the midst of the pandemic, we are most aware of the concept of worlding.

This book especially highlights and discusses the growing possibility of LAC agency, defined broadly to include both material and ideational elements, in regional and international relations, covering areas where contributions have been especially visible and relevant, such as regionalism, security management, peripheral realism, center–periphery, insertion, autonomy or dependence to analyze relations with the broader world and manage asymmetry. This is not about exclusively “LAC solutions to LAC problems”, but rather about contributions in which the academic community defines the terms for understanding the issues and sets the terms for the nature and scope of outside involvement. At the same time, we recognize that LAC theoretical contributions should not and need not be based exclusively on claims about LAC distinctiveness or exceptionalism. In fact, the region embodies a mix of unity and diversity in its member countries. We are not here to found a new school of IR. Rather, we believe LAC voices and contributions merit global resonance and can be brought to the core of the discipline. GIR is not theory-building but a push to recognize the worldwide foundations of IR.

From Non-Western International Relations Theory to GIR: Background

In a project on what they call non-Western IR theory, Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan (2007) argued that the main current theories of IR, especially realism, liberalism and, to a lesser extent, constructivism are too deeply rooted in, and beholden to, the history, intellectual tradition and agency claims of the West to accord little more than a marginal place to those of the non-Western world. This creates a “disjuncture”, whereby these supposedly universal theories fail to capture and explain the key trends and puzzles of IR in the Global North. In response, they call for the development of a new paradigm of IR theory that is more global, open, inclusive and able to capture the voice and experiences of both Western and non-Western worlds and avoid the present disjunctures between theoretical tools and the ground realities of the world beyond the West and, in the case of LAC, beyond the Euro-American–centric framework.

The reasons for the underdevelopment of theory outside Europe and the US are many, including cultural, political and institutional factors. These include the politics of academic knowledge; the assumption that Western theories provide a template; the “hegemonic” status of Western knowledge production whereby the key institutions, journals and conferences are either located in or controlled by the West; the possibility that indigenous theories may exist but remain hidden from global eyes due to language and other barriers; and finally the commitment to a tradition of scholar–activist–practitioner exemplified by towering figures such as Eric Williams, C.L.R. James, Norman Girvan, Frantz Fanon, Orlando Fals Borda, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.

The concept of a non-Western IR theory was met with criticism. Some would rather call the new project “post-Western”, with a more radical agenda to disavow and displace the existing “Western” IR. Others criticize the category non-Western as divisive and outmoded in view of the blurring differences between the West and the Rest. This forms the core rationale for the idea of GIR. GIR puts regions at the center of the scene, calling for the importance of conceptualizing and investigating forms and functions of regionalism in an attempt to bring non-European experiences into light. The end of North–South and East–West governing principles have led to an increasingly decentralized system, setting the stage for a new geography and the reconfiguration of political-diplomatic strategies. Regions became arenas of contestation, articulation, competence and inter-state coalition building. Regionalism speaks of and to the world even as it seeks to speak of, to and for the region. It is a concept to cover internal and external norms constantly shaping and reshaping IR. At the same time, a great deal of the theoretical debates in LAC have been mainly built on numerous approaches to regionalism, focused on the idea of gaining leverage in global affairs and improving insertion while retaining autonomy. The analytical focus on contestedness also locates the analysis within GIR that sees regionalisms and regions as purposeful, and socially constructed spaces animated through the exercise of widening agency to include resistance, evasion, side lining, normative action and local constructions of global order.

Against this backdrop, the book sets out to investigate broadly how LAC fits within the scope of the idea of GIR. As part of this effort, we pay some attention to what are the reasons for LAC’s marginalization in the field and how this issue can be addressed. While this has to some extent already been studied, the new challenge is how to redress it. Using the GIR paradigm, we argue that to gain relevance for LAC, GIR needs to be more authentically grounded in history and the ideas, institutions, intellectual perspectives and practices of states and societies. To this end, our approach identifies the following as the sources of LAC contribution to theory: history and culture, thoughts of revolutionary leaders, practices of statecraft, writings of contemporary IR scholars, and distinctive local and regional interaction patterns. Lived LAC realities on the ground mean that they can offer local and regional interaction patterns to inform, enrich or transform contemporary studies. Too often, LAC, as other parts of the developing world, have been the testing ground for outside concepts which have been experimental or had little durability. Not only is there, overall, a need for more embracing theories, but these also need to be more truly or holistically grounded in the lived world, LAC history and the ideas, institutions, intellectual perspectives and practices of states and societies. More embracing theories, therefore, ought to look toward taking fuller cognizance of events in the developing world, as well as to develop concepts and approaches from developing world contexts. Concepts that have local validity but do also have wider applicability to how the world works need to be tied into the disciplinary landscape.

In offering LAC theoretical contributions, we recognize, consistent with the GIR concept, the aim to eschew connotations of exceptionalism. We recognize limitations of theory-building that relies exclusively on the unique historical and cultural matrix and behavior patterns of LAC, its sub-regions, nations and civil societies. Relatedly, we believe that the more embracing and hence more adequate theories must develop concepts and approaches from LAC contexts that are valid locally but have applicability to the wider world. Such theoretical progress cannot, and need not, supplant Western theories but should aim to enrich them with the voices and experiences of LAC, including its claims to agency in global and regional order. This is strengthened by our focus on an agency, again a key element of GIR that takes us beyond the marginalization narrative found in most existing contributions to the literature. The issue of agency is not only critical to addressing LAC’s marginalization in Western theory, it also helps to illustrate an approach to the study of regions found in the “regional worlds” perspective that goes beyond the traditional view of regions as either passive spheres of influence or self-contained entities to stress how regions link with the global level and contribute to world order at large. Enough has been said, we hope, to explain the common thread of the book. We can now move on to briefly expound the structure of the volume.

The Structure of the Book

Arie Kacowicz and Daniel Wajner start off showing how LAC contribution interacts with debates from the Global North. The premise here is that we should engage in an intellectual dialogue across the virtual or constructed North–South academic divide. This dialogue challenges the prevailing hegemonic assumption that only Northern world order concepts have a global reach, whereas Southern inputs are minimal or non-existent. Getting rid of that hegemony, in scholarly terms, means that we have to see and understand the world from the perspective of the South in general, and Latin America in particular. The authors examine the LAC responses to alternative world orders in analytical and normative terms. They assess general attempts of theorizing in the region and from the region and show approaches to world order(s) along three issue-areas: peace, security, international law and institutions; international political economy, development and globalization; and foreign policy formulations.

Carsten-Andreas Schulz, in turn, explores the strategies of state actors seeking to influence the “rules of the game”. He elaborates the concept of agency (as distinct from autonomy). Agency denotes actors’ ability to act upon and transform structural constraints, whereas autonomy is an ability to pursue foreign policy aims. The chapter then elaborates on the scope conditions of non-hegemonic agency. Schulz applies this discussion to the three crucial cases of Latin American agency: the role of delegates at the Second Hague Conference of 1907; their contributions to institutionalizing the human rights regime after WWII; and the more recent influence in the Law of the Sea.

The chapter by Matias Spektor looks at the practice of regional hegemony by introducing the concept of regional social compacts—hierarchical assemblages that establish networks to bind governing elites. These points are illustrated through a regional social compact led by the United States in Cold War South America that established terror regimes. The chapter brings to the fore the manner and pervasiveness of US influence in the region. By the same token it stands apart from prevalent understandings of security regionalism as a force for good. Telling the story through this prism, we can honor one of GIR’s most valuable intellectual contributions to our field: establishing an explicit connection between the global organization of political authority in practice and its vast human consequences for people worldwide.

Kristina Hinds develops further the interconnectedness of the world order to its human consequences. She takes us to the Caribbean to expose the racialized way in which the world system has been fashioned through colonization. The Caribbean is an intriguing region, being a meeting point (voluntary and involuntary) of cultures and peoples and because of its bond to Africa. The proposition that the world is ordered around racialized exclusions is a common thread that runs through Caribbean analyses. The state appears as secondary to the racialized structure based on white supremacy. This historicist approach is the pillar of the theoretical contribution that Caribbean thought makes to GIR. We can glean that power relations across the state system cannot be separated from oppressive and racialized histories, as the history of the Caribbean–European relationship exemplifies. On this note, Franz Fanon deserves a mention as a founding father of the postcolonial tradition. In the area of international political economy, Caribbean scholars have also provided systemic theorizing about the nature of underdevelopment. Pride of place is held by conceptualizations offered from Nobel Laurate Sir Arthur Lewis, such as industrialization by invitation and development with unlimited supply of labor. The point here is to understand race and development are not addenda but lie at the core of GIR, an invitation to unsettling understandings of the field.

The invitation to unsettling understandings is further taken by Querejazu and Tickn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Latin America and the Caribbean in Global International Relations
• 2 Alternative World Orders in an Age of Globalization: Latin American Scenarios and Responses
• 3 From Autonomy to Agency (and Back Again): Debating Latin American States as Global Norm Entrepreneurs
• 4 Regionalism and Political Violence: Hegemony through Transnational Social Compacts in Cold War South America
• 5 Big Ideas from Small Places: Caribbean Thought for International Relations
• 6 Unsettling Knowledges in Latin America
• 7 The Rise China and the Post-Western World in Latin America: What Is in Store?
• 8 Latin American Feminism as a Contribution to a Global IR Agenda from the South
• 9 The Latin American School of IPE: a road from development to regionalism
• 10 Regionalism in Latin American Thought and Practice
• 11 From Dependency Theories to Mechanisms of Dependency: The Contribution of Latin American dependentistas to Global IR
• 12 Between ‘lo práctico’ and ‘lo posible’: International Insertion as an Innovation in Latin America’s Contribution to Global IR
• 13 The Concept of Autonomy as an Epistemic Foundation? Many Paths, Many Turns
• Conclusion: Taking Stock: Latin American Contributions to Global IR
• Contributor Bios
• Index