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International Affairs
July 1998
India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests have dismayed the international community. However, they can be seen as a culmination of the deterioration of international nuclear relations that has taken place since the mid-1990s. The author examines the reasons for this deterioration which he finds in US-Russian relations, the Middle East and South Asia, in disputes over arms control objectives, and in normative and procedural dilemmas that emerged as the number of countries with nuclear weapon programmes was reduced to a ‘hard core’ of eight states. This discussion provides the background for an assessment of the consequences of the actions of India and Pakistan. Despite the dangers, the author stresses the opportunities that could lie ahead. If key states act positively and cooperatively, the climate and processes of nuclear arms control could be transformed.
William Walker, Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is the author (with David Albright and Frans Berkhout) of Plutonium and highly enriched uranium 1996: world inventories, capabilities and policies (1997).
This article provides an overview of recent trends in Latin American security and examines three common assumptions that underpin both academic analysis and policy debate—assumptions about the links between political democracy, economic integration and regional stability, and about the need to broaden the agenda of regional security. In contrast to the liberal orthodoxy, there is little reason to believe that the promotion of political democracy and economic liberalization and integration will automatically tend towards regional stability, especially given the weakness of regional institutions, the fragility of many states, the inequality of power among states, and the lack of consensus over the meaning and implications of the ‘new security agenda’.
Andrew Hurrell, University Lecturer in International Relations and a fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He is co-editor with Benedict Kingsbury of The international politics of the environment (1992) and with Louise Fawcett of Regionalism in world politics (1995). He is currently completing a research project on inequality in world politics.
In the second presidential summit of the Americas, which took place in April 1998 in Santiago de Chile, 34 heads of states of the Americas announced that they were ready to start negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), to be concluded by 2005. This article briefly discusses the current trend in favour of regional preferential trade agreements, describes how the proposal for an FTAA came about, explores more than three years of negotiations that made it possible and assesses the probability of its success.
Paulo S. Wrobel, currently a Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and previously a Lecturer and researcher at the Catholic University, and a researcher at Fundação Getulio Vargas, both in Rio de Janeiro. He is the author of many studies on contemporary political and security issues in Brazil and South America.
Brazil is currently undergoing important structural changes, which make it difficult to assess the current and future situation. Moreover, the strains of this transition are more pronounced owing to Brazil’s earlier economic protection, its size and its social and regional inequalities. This article begins with a brief background description of the Brazilian economy before it was opened up to external competition at the beginning of the 1990s. The article continues by looking into the main changes that have taken place since then, analysing the achievements and shortcomings and presenting as accurate a picture as possible of the present situation. In the final section, the author draws on the two previous sections as well as recent work carried out by the Brazilian Institute for Applied Economic Research, to reach conclusions about Brazil’s future prospects.
Fernando Rezende, President of the Institute of Applied Economic Research, Brasilia. His work includes a project aimed at reforming the Brazilian tax system, as well as topics relating to fiscal harmonization.
The history of defence strategy in Brazil has been largely peace-orientated and the armed forces, which have developed independently, have been relatively small. However, recent stability in the economy, consolidation of democratic processes, and cooperation with its neighbours in the region have provided Brazil with the opportunity for new defence thinking which culminated in the 1996 announcement of a National Defence Policy (NDP). In this article the author assesses Brazil’s place in the South American strategic theatre and the objectives and main purposes of the NDP. He examines the preventative, cooperative and non-military components of the Policy, which seeks to ensure a balance between state security and social well-being.
Edmundo S. Fujita, a career diplomat of the Brazilian Foreign Service now serving as Undersecretary of Analysis and Evaluation in the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil.
Revisiting one arena of the Cold War—Central America—which dominated international headlines in the 1980s, this article explores its legacy on the region. It asks whether the ending of the Cold War and the peace accords which concluded the internal wars of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in 1990, 1992 and 1996, respectively, have brought sustainable peace, development and democracy. In particular, it explores the changing agenda of international financial and development agencies which have supported the postwar reconstruction of the region. The experiences of Nicaragua and El Salvador have shown that failure to coordinate the efforts at economic adjustment with those of peace-building compromised the possibilities of development and democratization, particularly for the poorest sectors of the population. Conservative elites who emerged intact from the war were able to consolidate their economic power, and resist and limit political reform, while handing responsibility for the poor and the former war zones to international agencies. The latter have shifted their agenda in the Guatemalan peace process, incorporating a strategy of ‘civil society strengthening’ in order to build capacity within society to create more accountable and democratic states.
The conclusion of the article explores the ambiguities of this strategy. On the positive side it legitimizes and protects the newly won but fragile freedoms of speech and association in the region; on the negative side, it risks turning a historical social and political dynamic into externally funded ‘projects’ with limited sustainability, whose outcome many international agencies tend to assume they can shape to their own expectations.
Jenny Pearce, Reader in Peace Studies in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. She previously worked for the Latin America Bureau. She is the author of Under the eagle: US intervention in Central America and the Caribbean (1982) and Promised land: peasant rebellion in Chalatenango, El Salvador (1986). Her most recent work is concerned with the problems and development of ‘civil society’ in Latin America.
This article argues that Britain and Argentina are now in a position to move towards unprecedented levels of political and economic cooperation concerning the governance of the Falklands and the surrounding seas. Since 1990, bilateral relations have been strengthened over issues such as fishing, oil and natural gas licensing communications and visits of the Argentine next-of-kin. It is argued that the Blair government has an opportunity not only to further the process of reconciliation but also to stimulate progress towards a permanent ‘sovereignty umbrella’. Against this setting, there is some pressure on the Menem government to obtain some recognition of their interests and claim to the Falklands/Malvinas. The article concludes by asserting that all major parties should seek to generate a permanent cooperative structure which recognizes a measure of self-governance of the Falklands within a world increasingly characterized by supraterritorial and transborder relationships.
Klaus Dodds, Lecturer in Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Geopolitics in Antarctica: views from the Southern Oceanic rim (1997). He focuses on geopolitics and the international politics of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
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