Send page Print

International trends / Comment

Latin America and the United States of America: an agenda set adrift

12/06/2008 By Augusto Varas

For geographical reasons, relations between the USA and Latin America are as inevitable as a common agenda for the region is necessary. Such an agenda must reflect the Western Hemisphere’s main problems, such as the inadequate treatment of immigrants and the eradication of the poverty which gives rise to such influxes of people; the demand for narcotics in the USA and drug trafficking at large; the democratisation of societies and civilian control of the armed forces; economic cooperation, protectionism and agricultural subsidies; and global warming and climate change.

In opinion of  Augusto Varas a new US administration will only be able to tackle these matters in a cooperative way, and provided those who devise and implement Western Hemisphere policy modify the conceptual tools used to identify and diagnose Latin American problems; multilateral institutions must also be activated to carry out collective action, and the security perspective limited to matters of a purely military nature.

The inappropriate transformation of hemispheric concerns into threats to American security leads in turn to the militarisation of these issues and allows control of the agenda to fall into the hands of the American armed forces, something which has already begun to take place in the Western Hemisphere.

 

Download the full version of this publication, available in English (67 kB)
Spanish (61 kB)

Keywords

Civil society Democracy Elections Latin America & Caribbean United States

Related publications

• Tensions and affinities: cultural relations and politics between the USA and Europe in the Bush era
• The United States and the UN: democrats versus Republicans?
• USA 2008: candidates confront the critical issues in Colombia
• USA 2008: the Democrats, free trade and Latin America

Bio author: Augusto Varas

Augusto Varas Fernández is an Associate Researcher with la Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE). He holds a Degree in Sociology from Universidad Católica de Chile and a Masters and Doctorate in Sociology from Washington University (St Louis), in the United States.