Solidarist discourse, pluralist practice? The evolution of a regional order in Latin America

Latin American regionalism presents a striking paradox. Prima facie, the region exhibits a self-conscious discursive sense of community, and a dense normative architecture based on highly cooperative, communitarian principles and values, involving the protection of human rights, the defence of democracy, the endorsement of nuclear non-proliferation, and a long-standing commitment to the peaceful resolution of regional disputes. However, coexisting with this cooperative discourse, there is a deeply entrenched state-centric ethos imprinted on regional practice. This is reflected in a zealous safeguard of the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, territorial integrity, autonomy, and anti-hegemonism, not only against extra-regional powers but also in relations between neighbouring states. This dissertation is motivated by the puzzle exhibited by the coexistence of highly cooperative normative aspirations and deeply entrenched state-centric commitments in Latin American regional politics. This work reframes these frictions between regional rhetoric and practice as a structural tension embedded in the region’s historical development. Through an interpretivist, emic, agent-centric, and longue durée account of this bicentenary regional order, I disentangle the emergence, contestation, and evolution of Latin American regionness. In so doing, I stress the importance of path dependence in the appraisal of contemporary regional dispositions. Consequently, I deploy a dual process-tracing strategy, combining discourse-tracing and practice-tracing, to trace the trajectory of the core principles, norms, values, and practices that have shaped this regional order throughout its two-century history. For that, I resort to in-depth archival work and to semi-structured interviews with regional stakeholders, encompassing diplomats, other government officials, policy advisors, academics, and civil society activists. This study shows that the current tensions between regional rhetoric and political practice are not anomalies or signs of normative emptiness. Rather, I demonstrate that the enduring tensions between sovereignty and solidarity are a constitutive feature of Latin American regional order-making, reflecting long-standing negotiations between state-centric and cooperative principles.