Brazil’s international rise: an overview of limitations and constraints

At a recent presentation to the LSE Ideas Centre, Roberto Jaguaribe, the Brazilian ambassador to the UK, painted a relatively positive picture of Brazil’s regional and global role. He noted Brazil’s efforts to achieve greater regional integration, from the creation of the Mercosur common market (including Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and, as an associate member, Venezuela) in 1991 to the establishment of the South America-wide Unasur in 2008. He reported on Brazil’s increasingly diversified trade relations with the world and its current efforts to open up global governance through its participation in various groups of other state actors, along with the G20. Brazil’s emergence, along with these other state actors, opens the prospect of change in the nature of international relations more generally

Narrow options: Mexican policy responses to illegal immigration

There has been official outrage in Mexico regarding a new Arizona state law designed to discourage illegal immigration. As well as arresting day labours in the state who solicit work, police departments may be sued for failing to enforce the law. Mexican president Felipe Calderon has claimed that immigration is a social and economic phenomenon and that to discourage it will only lead to intolerance and discrimination

Considerations about the rising Latin American Right

That Sebastian Piñeira’s election as president in Chile has implications in and of itself should not overlook the wider regional context and a possible resurgence by the Right in Latin America following a decade during which the Left was dominant

The bigger picture: Israel-Turkey relations in context

The fallout from the Gaza flotilla debacle at the end of May provides an opportunity to consider the relative positions of Israel and Turkey both regionally and globally. The furore has reinforced the image of Israel as a growing liability for American and European interests and highlighted the increasing importance of Turkey

The US in Costa Rica: the price of Latin American exceptionalism?

During the current Venezuela-Colombia spat, one particular comment by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, was particularly striking – although not necessarily for the reason he gave. During a speech commemorating Venezuela’s founder and his political hero, Simon Bolivar, Chavez highlighted the passage of 46 US warships, 200 helicopters and 7000 marines into Costa Rica since the beginning of July. Along with four bases that Panama has made available to Washington, Chavez portrayed the move as growing military pressure and potential aggression by the US against himself

Honduras: the international impact of last year’s coup

The opposition of several Latin American leaders against the attendance of the Honduran leader, Porfirio Lobo, at the upcoming EU-Latin America summit in Madrid later this month highlights the continuing fallout from the coup in Honduras last year. At the same time the contrasting stances of the Europeans and Latin Americans also arguably reveals deeper fault lines between the two sides concerning the basis of democracy. Like the US, the EU appears inclined to a limited and formal form of democracy, which emphasises representative institutions. Meanwhile, the Latin American governments that have taken a critical stance against Honduras have largely adopted a position that sees democracy as requiring deeper social legitimacy that goes beyond holding elections

Reflections on contemporary social protests and governance

When the history of the present is eventually written, 2011 may well be most closely associated with the ‘Arab spring.’ Attention will undoubtedly centre on the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the currently ongoing protests against leaderships from the Gulf to Yemen and violent reaction from the Libyan and Syrian regimes

Argentina and the Falklands: the domestic politics behind Cristina Kirchner’s protests

There is a clear separation between President Cristina Kircher’s support at the international level and lack of it domestically. On one hand she is receiving cross-continental solidarity to her opposition to British oil drilling off the Falkland Islands at the current Rio Group summit of Latin American states in Mexico. On the other she is struggling from a weak political position at home. The focus on the Falklands may therefore be seen as not only a reassertion of Argentine ownership over them (which it has never renounced despite defeat against Britain in 1982), but also as a means of recovering political support, especially among the marginalised

Feminised international politics: three cases from Latin America

What role and impact do women have on politics and international affairs? Nearly a century ago, when suffragettes demanded the vote, a number of assumptions were made about female political representation. They included the claim that women would bring virtue and morality into what was seen as a largely immoral male public sphere, while later feminists argue that women share common interests that are distinct from those of men (e.g. a greater concern with reproductive rights and state provision of social care)