Latin America and the liberal international order: an agenda for research

Abstract

Recent debates about challenges to the liberal international order (LIO) have led International Relations (IR) scholars, both those critical and supportive of the concept, to examine its origins and effects. While this work has shed new light on the evolution of international order, there has been a surprising absence: Latin America. I explore the theoretical consequences of this empirical gap for IR's understanding of the liberal international order. After assessing the literature's treatment of Latin American and the LIO, I offer a macro-historical sketch of the region's role in the order's critical junctures. The LIO has shaped Latin America, and Latin America has shaped the LIO—but not always in the ways supporters or critics might expect. The region's sovereignty and statehood evolved alongside the LIO—with international experiences very different from those of areas colonized during the LIO's expansion—and, in turn, Latin American engagement shaped the practices of Great Powers through international law and organization, cooperation and resistance. Despite its participation in the LIO's founding moments, Latin America was often accorded second-class treatment and benefits for the region have often been narrow. The experience of Latin American states over two centuries—independent but often internationally unequal—highlights the consequences of partial inclusion or marginalization from the LIO. Deeper study of Latin America's history with the LIO casts light on the ways in which non-Great Powers outside the order's core shaped, and were shaped by, the elements of the evolving order.