Three building blocks of a theory of Latin American foreign policy

Abstract

towards developing theory. Scholarship on Latin American foreign policy-particularly, though certainly not exclusively, that emanating from Latin America-focuses heavily on international law, foreign policy principles and traditions and the role of individual leaders.3 Increasingly, researchers have expanded the scope of their examination of Latin American foreign policy, encountering in their analyses a broad range of foreign policy goals and explanatory forces.4 A review of the literature reveals that Latin American foreign policy makers include among their more important goals autonomy, development and the management of their relationship with the USA. Other key goals include developing policy to treat regional relationships, Third Worldism, drug trafficking, national security, arms control, border disputes and other local issues. A literature review also finds that the most frequently cited explanatory factors of Latin American foreign policy are US influence, poor economic resources, leader and regime ideology, and the global distribution of power and wealth. Researchers in this area rarely spend time pondering methodological issues. Overwhelmingly, the case study approach dominates the literature. Most examinations are qualitative studies of the foreign policy behavior of an individual state, regime or a few countries in comparative perspective. The research heavily focuses on the nation-state and often takes the form of story-telling, albeit in an analytical way which sometimes includes some loosely tested hypotheses.5 A 'kitchen sink' approach is also popular, in which researchers model and examine all the potential explanatory inputs into a particular country's (or countries')