Manuel Antonio Garretón, Marcelo Cavarozzi, Peter S. Cleaves, Gary Gereffi and Jonathan Hartlyn, Latin America in the 21st Century: Toward a New Sociopolitical Matrix (Miami, FL: North-South Center Press, 2003), pp. iv+148, £14.95, pb.

Abstract

pp. viii+243, £36.95, hb. This informative and well-organised collection of essays examines some of the major changes that have taken place in Latin America's international relations and some of the major challenges facing the region. Michael Shifter's introduction gives a harsher picture of the region than that contained in several of the other chapters -stressing the worsening economic, social and political crisis in many parts of the region, and the absence of a sense of strategic concern with the region on the part of the United States. Carol Wise provides an illuminating analysis of the FTAA. Her account correctly sees the obstacles to the FTAA in terms of structural interaction and the character of two-level politics within a range of countries ; rather than, as on so many US accounts, simply the result of Latin America's (and especially Brazil's) problematic policy choices. Margaret Daly Hayes covers the changing security agenda, examining the contrast between the still relatively positive inter-state security environment and both worsening transnational insecurities (crime, drugs, terrorism) and increasing social violence. In terms of the resources for security, she usefully stresses the limited resources devoted to the police and to the development of the quality of law enforcement. The chapter says less than one might have expected about the seriousness of insecurity in the Andean region and about the very deep divergences that have come to exist between the security agendas of Latin America on the one hand and the USA on the other. Roberto Russell's analysis of US-Latin American relations contains a nice and illuminating sense of history, of the kind so often lacking in US accounts. He analyses the two sides of US policy. On the one hand, he argues that interests are shaped by three factors: size, proximity and level of threat, and he recognises the extent to which changing US interests post-September 11 have led to a marginalisation of the region. On the other, he seeks to show how, from the mid-1980s, democratisation, economic regionalism, economic liberalisation and cultural changes have all favoured the ' development of a policy agenda that demonstrates heretofore unseen levels of convergence ' (p. 65). Although not unmindful of the many problems and challenges, the overall tone is cautiously positive and the glass remains half-full rather than half-empty. Charles Doran's account of Canada's ' new opening to Latin America ' covers much of the ground but rather skirts around the regional problems that faced Canada before September 11 and which have become far more serious and intractable since. Nor is it wholly clear either that Canada ' is, at last, a fully committed member of the Western Hemisphere ' (p. 112), not least given the unravelling of the liberal arguments for convergence that attracted Ottawa in the 1990s but which are now increasingly under challenge.Rosa Alonso Terme analyses the role of international financial institutions. As with so much economic writing, the chapter is highly ...