Foreign Policy Options under Dependence: A Theoretical Evaluation with Evidence from Ecuador

Abstract

Scholarly studies that consider the relationship between economic dependence and foreign policy reveal a wide variety of dependent foreign policy behaviour. As a body, the dependent foreign policy literature lacks the theoretical continuity needed to understand and organise this empirical diversity. Such foreign policy diversity is particularly observable in capitalist Latin America. Despite the entire region's significant economic weakness and dependence on the USA, leaders implement foreign policies as defiant as Oscar Arias's peace plan for Central America and as apparently acquiescent as Carlos Salinas de Gortari's agreeing to a Free Trade Agreement between Mexico and the USA. Progress in theory building in the area of dependent foreign policy, therefore, has particular implications for the study of Latin American foreign policy, which has been dominated by individual case studies that too rarely place their findings in a theoretical context.