Russell Crandall's The United States and Latin America after the Cold War

I read Russell Crandall's The United States and Latin America after the Cold War, which takes a novel approach. It begins with the idea that the Cold War is over, but many people--particularly policy makers--continue to view Latin America within its antiquated framework, especially in terms of emphasizing security to an exaggerated degree over other factors like domestic politics in the United States. He examines U.S.-Latin Americans from the dual lenses of "Anti-imperialists" and those from the "Establishment," and the novelty is Crandall's goal of explaining the arguments of the opposing sides at the same time. There are fourteen chapters, each taking a look at different general topics (democracy, security, etc.) and specific countries.

The distinction between the two viewpoints is not always quite so simple, which he acknowledges, but it is a reasonable point of departure. The chapters then explain a wide variety of agreements, disputes, interventions, diplomatic overtures, etc. while showing what sorts of argument (usually in counterpoise) each side offered in support or opposition. The focus on balance could make it useful for the classroom, though given how many issues it raises, one would need to fill in knowledge that is taken for granted or mentioned rather briefly.

He argues that especially in the post Cold War era, the realist school just cannot explain the mix of policy players and the influence of domestic concerns. With this I have no argument (I note the shortcoming of realism in my own book) but I did feel like the theme of power really kept popping up throughout the narrative (for example, multiple times he cites U.S. Ambassadors in different countries making threats about what will happen if the "wrong" candidate is elected--sometimes it backfired, but the threats were based on everyone knowing what the U.S. was capable of doing). Even though it is certainly true that the old style "Big Stick" is not always apparent, the imbalance of power is very often central to understanding U.S.-Latin American relations.

So then what is the next step conceptually? To my mind, an important question is how to address Crandall's main point about intermestic policy without rejecting the relevance of power. I don't have a great answer, but I would definitely like to see more conceptual development in the analysis of U.S.-Latin American relations that could provide a framework for explaining policy dynamics. Cuba is a perfect example--U.S. use of power is integral to understanding the relationship, yet Obama's change of tone has much more to do with evolving domestic constituencies than anything else.