Re-Thinking Latin American Regional Security: The Impact of Power and Politics

Latin American security is still viewed through a Cold War lens. Yet, the regional scenario has changed since then and is characterized by developments like the disengagement of the United States, the emergence of ‘regional powers’, the creation of ever more multilateral security institutions, and new interpretations of the concepts of regionalism and regional integration. We argue that we cannot understand the management of security challenges without accounting for regional and global power shifts and political dynamics. Therefore, the introductory chapter presents an analytical framework to assess the impact of global and regional power shifts on the regional governance of specific security challenges such as interstate disputes, internal political violence, terrorism, drug-trafficking, and illegal migration. It will also give an outlook on how the different contributions substantiate our argument.