Foreign Policy Analysis in Latin American democracies: the case for a research protocol

Abstract

In this article we propose an alternative theoretical path to study contemporary Latin American foreign policies, evoking the notion of 'public policy cycle' to explain how democratic regimes in the region have been able to expand their autonomy over time. For that, we will first identify the sources of a given country's foreign policy, both at home and abroad, as well as its decision-making and implementation mechanisms. With regard to methodology, by replacing sheer deductivism for some inductivism, this approach also innovates in allowing more rigorous comparative politics and, consequently, new general theories about Latin American politics and policies.Keywords: Latin America; Democracy; Foreign Policy Analysis. Received: March 13, 2016Accepted: June 14, 2016 IntroductionT his article has both a conceptual nature and a normative appeal, as it postulates an unconventional approach to Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) on Latin American democracies in at least two senses: (a) it emphasizes the need to avoid sheer policy comparison, instead advocating the comprehension of conditions under which each foreign policy is conceived and implemented; and (b) it rejects the determinism of systemic approaches in International Relations (IR), usually responsible for assigning to the Latin American continent the role of either a complement to globalized supply chains or an area under the military influence of global powers. This article argues that a possible way to overcome such difficulties could be an analytical turn toward 'foreign policy cycles', i.e. by identifying domestic and international sources of a country's foreign policy (FP), as well as its procedures for formulation, decision-making and implementation, one would be better positioned to assess a Copyright:• This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited.• Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto e distribuído sob os termos da Foreign Policy Analysis in Latin American democracies: the case for a research protocol Rev. Bras. Polít. Int., 59(1): e006, 2016 Lopes; Faria; Santos 2 country's FP. It envisages the adoption of an inductive pathway, associated with a methodologically rigorous comparative stance, to lead to new theories and concepts, better able to explain foreign policy choices in Latin American democracies. For that purpose, in this paper's first section we apply the foundations of comparative politics to foreign policy studies. In the second section, we aim to present the latest developments in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) in Latin America, drawing attention to two of its most recurrent traits -reliance on an oversimplified behaviorism and/or on a deterministic version of structuralism. Contemporary Venezuelan foreign policy will then be addressed as a case study to illustrate the shortcomings of Latin American FPA. The third part introduces the buil...

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