Foreign and Security Policy in Regional Organisations

Abstract

In the last decade, the Americas have experienced a proliferation of new regional organisations, which have complemented previously existing regional cooperation schemes. Member states have used both old and new organisations as an arena to increase cooperation in economic, diplomatic and security issues and, in some cases, to mitigate bilateral tensions, but also as instruments to advance their foreign policy interests. At the same time, it has been pointed out that the new organisations were formed due to institutional paralysis of the pre-existing ones and that even the new ones lack a clear vision for future institutional development. New and old organisations overlap in their attempts to provide regional security governance. Institutional overlapping is an outcome of similar goals and multiple institutional memberships, but may also be a reflection of divergent regional foreign policy strategies especially of those states at the top of the regional hierarchy. This panel seeks to bring together scholars from the fields of Latin American regionalism and foreign and security policy analysis to study the emergence of different regional cooperation schemes in the Americas, the foreign policy of relevant states within the new and old regional institutions, the interplay between states and regional institutions, the connection between bilateral relations and regional cooperation, and the causes and dynamics of institutional overlap. The panel particularly welcomes contributions that compare two or more regional cooperation schemes such as the OAS, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, ALBA, the Rio Group, SICA, NAFTA, CELAC or the Alliance of the Pacific.

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