Addicted to Failure

U.S. Security Policy in Latin America and the Andean Region

Brian Loveman

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9780742565890
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

For supplementary documentation and useful websites, click here.

This perceptive book critically explores why the United States continues to pursue failed policies in Latin America. What elements of the U.S. and Latin American political systems have allowed the Cold War, the war on drugs, and the war on terror to be conflated? Why do U.S. policies—ostensibly designed to promote the rule of law, human rights, and democracy—instead contribute to widespread corruption, erosion of government authority, human rights violations, and increasing destabilization? Why have the war on drugs and the war on terror neither reduced narcotics trafficking nor increased citizen security in Latin America? Why do Latin American governments, the European Union, and U.S. policymakers often work at cross-purposes when they all claim to be committed to "democratization" and "development" in the region?

Leading scholars answer these questions by detailing the nature of U.S. economic and security strategies in Latin America and the Andean region since 1990. They analyze the impacts and responses to these strategies by policymakers, political leaders, and social movements throughout the region, explaining how programs often generate or exacerbate the very problems they were intended to solve. Reviewing official policy and its defenders and critics alike, this indispensable book focuses on the reasons for the failure of U.S. policies and their disastrous significance for Latin America and the United States alike.

Contributions by: Adrián Bonilla, Pilar Gaitán, Monica Herz, Kenneth Lehman, Brian Loveman, Enrique Obando, Orlando J. Pérez, Eduardo Pizarro, Philipp Schönrock-Martínez, and Juan Gabriel Tokatlian

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Table of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 - U.S. Security Policies in Latin America and the Andean Region, 1990–2006
• 2 - Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative: Lights and Shadows
• 3 - U.S. Security Policy and U.S.–Venezuelan Relations
• 4 - U.S. Andean Policy, the Colombian Conflict, and Security in Ecuador
• 5 - A “Medicine of Death”? U.S. Policy and Political Disarray in Bolivia, 1985-2006
• 6 - U.S. Policy toward Peru: At Odds for Twenty Years
• 7 - Brazil, Andean Security, and U.S. Regional Security Policy
• 8 - The European Union and Security and Defense Policy in the Andean Region
• 9 - After Iraq: Next Colombia? The United States and (In)Security in South America
• Notes
• Selected References
• Index
• About the Contributors
• Table of Contents for Supplementary Materials URL
• LATIN AMERICAN SILHOUETTES