Foreign Policy Thinking in Latin America: Concepts, Approaches and Research Directions

Abstract

The author tries to define terms, concepts and categories the most frequently used by Latin America scholars and to define the directions and thematic focus of their academic activities in the foreign policy and international relations research area by applying the discourse and content analysis of relevant scientific publications, its abstracts and keywords. It was concluded that de facto, under the influence or even the dominance of the Western political science and the Western international relations theory, the particular Latin America foreign policy thinking has emerged and continues to develop. It is non-Western essentially, taking into account the belonging of the Latin America and the Caribbean countries to the periphery and/or semi-periphery of the global world. The following factors have been also important: common civilizational basis and similar institutional and political characteristics of the formation and dynamics of the Latin America countries and societies, many general development problems, common regional challenges and threats which require collective efforts for searching effective responses on them. Similarly, the significant role of external factors and global actors that influence country and international political processes in the Latin America region is noted. And also those possibilities which the trend towards polycentric world order paves the way for the leading powers in the region are taken into consideration. The author focuses on the concepts of the autonomy and dependency (or dependence development) when Latin America scholars analyzing the foreign policy of the concrete countries in the region and integration processes which construct the regional and sub-regional transnational political spaces. Attention is paid to the specificity of comparative foreign policy studies and spatial turn in the Latin America international relations studies.