Geopolitics And Conflict In South America

This book examines the nature and impact of geopolitical thinking in South America especially in relation to a series of conflict situations in the region. The major portion of the book is devoted to an analysis of some twelve potential conflict situations in South America and includes information on the historical background, recent developments, and the relationship to other conflicts and modes of geopolitical thinking in the countries involved.

Geography has always played a major role in world politics. In this study, Philip Kelly maps the geopolitics of South America, a continent where relative isolation from the power centers in North America and Eurasia and often forbidding internal terrain have given rise to a fascinating and unique geopolitical structure. Kelly uses the geographical concepts of "checkerboards" and "shatterbelts" to characterize much of South America's geopolitics and to explain why the continent has never been unified nor dominated by a single nation. This approach accounts for both historical relationships among South American countries and for such current situations as Brazil's inability to extend its authority across the continent from Atlantic to Pacific, its traditional competition with Argentina, its territorial expansion toward the continental heartlands, its encirclement by neighbors fearful of such expansion, and its recent rapprochement with Argentina. An important component of this book is the incorporation of the thinking and writing of South American geopolitical analysts, which leads to an interesting inventory of viewpoints on frontier conflicts, territorial expansion, industrial development, economic cooperation, and United States and European relations. Kelly's findings will be important reading for geographers, political scientists, and students and scholars of Latin American history.

This book approaches the diversity of south and central America from a critical human geography perspective. It seeks to overcome stereotypes by stressing the need for an inclusionary political geography which cuts across traditional boundaries.

This book is a concise overview of the recent history of U.S.-Central American relations. Part of the Contemporary Inter-American Relations series edited by Jorge Dominguez and Rafael Fernandez de Castro, it focuses on the relations between the U.S. and this region since the end of the Cold War. The volume considers economic relations between the two regions, presenting pertinent information on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It also looks at political issues such as military cooperation, security issues, the drug trade and organized crime, democracy in the region, and migration. Finally, it concludes with an assessment of the direction US-Central American relations are taking at present, moving beyond the black-and-white challenges of Soviet domination in the region to address post-9/11 security concerns. The United States and Central America will be of interest to students and scholars of foreign policy, Latin American politics and politics and international relations in general.

Introduction: New Histories of Latin America at the League of Nations / Yannick Wehrli -- Part One. Sovereignty and Conflict Resolution -- Anti-Imperialism and the Failure of the League of Nations / Alan McPherson -- A Dangerous League of Nations : The Abyssinian War and Latin American Proposals for the Regionalization of Collective Security / Yannick Wehrli -- Mexico and its "Defense" of Ethiopia at the League of Nations / Fabián Herrera León -- Non-Intervention through Intervention : Mexican Diplomacy in the League of Nations during the Spanish Civil War / Abdiel Oñate -- Part Two. Labor -- Europe-Geneva-America : The First International Conference of American States Affiliated to the International Labour Organization / Norberto Osvaldo Ferreras -- "To Raise Awareness of Difficulties and to Assert their Opinion" : The International Labour Office and the Regionalization of International Cooperation in the 1930s / Véronique Plata-Stenger -- Beyond Social Legislation : Worker Unity in Latin America and its Links to the International Labour Organization, 1936-1939 / Patricio Herrera González -- Part Three. Intellectual and Scientific Cooperation -- "The Spirit of Harmony" and the Politics of (Latin American) History at the League of Nations / Corinne Pernet -- Latin America at the Crossroads : The Inter-American Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, the League of Nations, and the Pan-American Union / Juliette Dumont -- Between National and International Science and Education : Miguel Ozório de Almeida and the League of Nations's Intellectual Cooperation Project / Letícia Pumar -- Rudolf Kraus, South America, and the League of Nations's Permanent Commission on Biological Standardization / Juliana Manzoni -- Part Four. Economic and Social Activities -- Discovering Underdevelopment : Argentina and Double Taxation at the League of Nations / José Antonio Sánchez Román -- Latin America and International Nutrition : Integrative Channels in the Interwar Period / Maria Leticia Galluzzi Bizzo -- Separating the Political from the Technical : The 1938 League of Nations Mission to Latin America / Amelia Kiddle -- Conclusion: The Distinct Integration of Latin America / Alan McPherson

Around the world, familiar ideological conflicts over the market are becoming increasingly territorialized in the form of policy conflicts between national and subnational governments. Thanks to a series of trends like globalization, democratization, and especially decentralization, subnational governments are now in a position to more effectively challenge the ideological orientation of the national government. The book conceptualizes these challenges as operating in two related but distinct modes. The first stems from elected subnational officials who use their authority, resources, and legitimacy to design, implement, and defend subnational policy regimes that deviate ideologically from national policy regimes. The second occurs when these same officials use their authority, resources, and legitimacy to question, oppose, and alter the ideological content of national policy regimes. The book focuses on three similarly-situated countries in Latin America where these two types of policy challenges met different fates; neither challenge succeeded in Peru, both succeeded in Bolivia, and Ecuador experienced an intermediate outcome marked by the success of the first type of challenge (i.e. the defence of a deviant, neoliberal subnational policy regime) and the failure of the second (i.e. the inability to alter a statist national policy regime). Derived from the in-depth study of these countries, the book's theoretical argument emphasizes three critical variables: 1) the structural significance of the territory over which subnational elected officials preside, 2) the level of institutional capacity they can harness, and 3) the strength of the societal coalitions they can build both within and across subnational jurisdictions. Transformations in Governance is a major new academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

This new Handbook is a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge essays on all aspects of Latin American Security by a mix of established and emerging scholars. The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Security identifies the key contemporary topics of research and debate, taking into account that the study of Latin America’s comparative and international politics has undergone dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War, the return of democracy and the re-legitimization and re-armament of the military against the background of low-level uses of force short of war. Latin America’s security issues have become an important topic in international relations and Latin American studies. This Handbook sets a rigorous agenda for future research and is organised into five key parts: • The Evolution of Security in Latin America • Theoretical Approaches to Security in Latin America • Different 'Securities' • Contemporary Regional Security Challenges • Latin America and Contemporary International Security Challenges With a focus on contemporary challenges and the failures of regional institutions to eliminate the threat of the use of force among Latin Americans, this Handbook will be of great interest to students of Latin American politics, security studies, war and conflict studies and International Relations in general.