The Evolution, Resilience, and Future of Bolívar's Dream: Reevaluating Regional Integration in a Post-Liberal, Post-Hegemonic Latin America

Alvarez, Thomas

The Evolution, Resilience, and Future of Bolívar's Dream: Reevaluating Regional Integration in a Post-Liberal, Post-Hegemonic Latin America

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/41664

Author(s)

Alvarez, Thomas

Date Issued

April 15, 2016

Abstract

The goal of this study is to contextualize Latin America’s long, complex experience with regional integration. Specifically, I will analyze contemporary, fourth wave regional structures in a post-liberal, post-hegemonic Latin America (2001-Present). Since Simón Bolívar initially proposed a Spanish-American Union, similar, albeit less profound, regional attempts have been made. First, it is important to unravel and interpret the complex history of regional movements, referred to as waves, of which many scholars are hesitant to do. From this historical analysis, characteristics and trends of previous integration can then be used to explain and understand the current state of the Latin America’s regional system. In the final analysis, I examine twenty-first century regional schemes, identified as “fourth wave,” “post-liberal” and “post-hegemonic.” I contextualize Latin America’s “Pink Tide,” experienced in the early twenty-first century, in conjunction with September 11, 2001 and the subsequent US-foreign policy shift away from Latin America, as features of the fourth wave period. During this time, Latin America has been left without the predominating presence of a foreign hegemon, arguably for the first time in centuries. This motivated the founding of several Latin American-centered and US-exclusionary regional schemes which aimed at re-integrating the region (politically, economically, socially, and culturally), solving regional issues in the absence of the United States, and creating a unified regional voice to be heard on the world stage. Nearly 15 years since the turn of this new wave, current integration in Latin America is considerably inflated, overlapping, and ineffective. I argue that current Latin American leadership lacks both the political will and capability to commit to substantial, sustainable regionalisms. I as well suggest that hemisphere regional thought may no longer be helpful or relevant. Finally, following this grim interpretation, I contemplate several recent events which I believe signal the beginnings of a fifth wave of regional integration.

Major

International Studies

Spanish

Honors

Spanish, 2016

First Reader(s)

Mattiace, Shannan