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Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America pp 53–76Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Security Governance in Latin America

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Abstract

This chapter argues that power shifts in Latin America have operated not only at the hemispheric level with the relative decline of the presence of the United States and the emergence of Brazil, but also at the level of individual states when countries have experienced a domestic fragmentation of power. The chapter examines the main sources of security threats in the region and the security instruments for addressing them from the perspective of four political levels of aggregation (hemispheric, regional, bilateral and domestic); furthermore, it argues that the capacity of these instruments varies depending on the centrality of the main actors (states or regional organizations) and the strength of security mechanisms (i.e. their legal capacity and the resources allocated).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. MIST: Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey.

  2. 2.

    From 2000 to 2010, the GINI coefficient rose in rich countries from 29.8 to 30.4 and it fell in Latin America from 55.1 to 50.2, which made the continent still the world’s most unequal region (Velasco 2015).

  3. 3.

    According to the IISS (2015), the oldest mechanism is Chile’s 1958 copper law, which after several modifications now allocates 10 percent of the export revenues to purchases of military equipment. Established in 2005, Peru’s National Defense Fund equally distributes part of the revenues from natural gas extraction of the Camisea Gas Project between the army, air force, navy and national police. Other cases include Bolivia and Honduras: Bolivia announced in August its plans to create a defense fund using income from an existing tax on hydrocarbons and Honduras introduced a security bill raising revenue from certain financial transactions.

  4. 4.

    The OAS expelled Honduras as a result of the crisis in 2009 based on Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Suffolk University, Boston, MA, USA

    Roberto Dominguez

Authors
  1. Roberto Dominguez
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Correspondence to Roberto Dominguez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil

    Marcial A.G. Suarez

  2. University of São Paulo , São Paulo, Brazil

    Rafael Duarte Villa

  3. University of Sao Paulo , Sao Paulo, Brazil

    Brigitte Weiffen

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Dominguez, R. (2017). Security Governance in Latin America. In: Suarez, M., Villa, R., Weiffen, B. (eds) Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57382-7_3

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