L’US Navy se déploie
Désireux de faire face à la montée en puissance des gouvernements de gauche dans leur arrière-cour, les États-Unis recréent la
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South America
Malos Aires, Argentina
Checking out Martinique’s and Guadeloupe’s Neighborhood Caribbean Politics in the 21st Century
This article is an adaptation of a public lecture delivered at the:
Université des Antilles et de la Guyane (Guadeloupe)
By Holger Henke
Metropolitan College of New York
Senior Research Fellow, Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Malos Aires, Argentina
By Monica Shah
Checking out Martinique’s and Guadeloupe’s Neighborhood Caribbean Politics in the 21st Century
There are at least two large themes underpinning a number of the contemporary developments in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and by extension in other Caribbean countries: one is the question of autonomy or independence, the other is a matter of identity. Much has been said about these issues – and one can think of the contribution of such Caribbean intellectuals as Césaire, Glissant, Chamoiseau, and others – and it is indeed difficult at this point to hope to add much of substance to this debate. One may argue, however, that preoccupation with these issues, and the relative neglect of the immediately adjacent Caribbean neighborhood, has much to do with the special status Guadeloupe and Martinique enjoy as French overseas departments. In any case, it also appears that these issues have, to a large extent, become the provenance of limited political or intellectual elite, and are no longer part of a band of thinkers sharing a deeply felt political credo. In Martinique, polls clearly show that such theoretical issues are considered to be of much less concern than more mundane and immediate matters such as unemployment, economic development, housing, education, drugs, or social security. Presumably, this is also true for Guadeloupe.
Malos Aires, Argentina
Christina Fernández at the Helm
Four months after being sworn in as the first elected female president of Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is now facing the most hectoring of times since taking office on December 10, 2007. Argentine farmers only recently ended a three-week strike protesting a tax increase on grain exports, saying that the strikes will be suspended for only thirty days in order to allow time for the four major farm groups to hold negotiations with the government. Farmers had been blocking local roads as well as major highways in order to prevent trucks from transporting agricultural produce. Taxes on soybeans, which today are Argentina’s principal export, along with other products, like wheat, were increased from 35 percent to almost 45 percent, in an effort to curb rising inflation levels and high prices on domestic food supplies. President Fernández currently faces grave challenges because she holds the country’s well-being in her hands.
By the time that the strike was lifted, there were shortages of meat, fresh produce, and dairy products, as well as a shut-down of grain and livestock shipments. On March 25, there was a nationwide rally in support of the farmers, in which thousands of their supporters banged pots and pans in the streets of the capital, while Fernández adamantly maintained her position that the tax increase was necessary in part to redistribute wealth in a country where a little under 24% of the population already lives below the poverty line.
Calls for Transparency and Increased Patriotism: Fallout from Colombia-Ecuador Border Crisis Continues to Affect Ecuador’s Military
• Tension builds between the military and President Rafael Correa amidst accusations of wrongdoing
• More developments follow from the Colombia-Ecuador Border Crisis as Defense Minister Wéllington Sandoval is forced to resign
• Correa calls for high level commission to promote transparency
Ecuador’s Poetic Defense Minister
Javier Ponce Cevallos, sworn in on April 9th as Ecuador’s new minister of defense, may be the hemisphere’s most literary belle–letrist high official. Ponce, a poet, essayist and novelist, will leave his position as personal secretary to President Correa to assume a senior position in El Palacio de la Exposición. Never having served in the military (a result of the temporary suspension of the application of conscription laws by military strongman Castro Jijón in the early 1970s), Ponce takes office despite publicly-aired misgivings expressed by Hector Camacho, chief of the country’s Joint Command, and Guillermo Vásconez, Commander of the Army.
Tensions between President Correa and top officials of Ecuador’s armed forces grew in the wake of the March 1, 2008 Ecuadorian-Colombian border crisis. An Ecuadorian civilian, Franklin Aisilla, an Ecuadorian national was killed in Colombia’s aerial bombing near the border hamlet of Angostura on that day. Correa learned of Aisilla’s death and his apparent links to Las Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerrilla group, in an article published in a local news source some days afterward.
Bolivia Struggles with Its Proposed New Constitution
Consensual Hegemony: Theorizing Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War
Sean W. Burges,1 Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Ottawa
Abstract
Conventional approaches to hegemony emphasize elements of coercion and exclusion, characteristics that do not adequately explain the operation of the growing number of regional
projects or the style of emerging-power foreign policy. This article develops the concept
of consensual hegemony, explaining how a structure can be articulated, disseminated and
maintained without relying on force to recruit the participation of other actors. The central
idea is the construction of a structural vision, or hegemony, that specifi cally includes the
nominally subordinate, engaging in a process of dialogue and interaction that causes the
subordinate parties to appropriate and absorb the substance and requisites of the hegemony
as their own. The utility of consensual hegemony as an analytical device, especially for the
study of regionalism and emerging market power foreign policy, is outlined with reference
to Brazil’s post-Cold War foreign policy, demonstrating both how a consensual hegemony
might be pursued and where the limits to its ideas-based nature lie.
Click here to read the full article.
Bolivia’s continuing political crisis which has brought expressions of concern from international and regional entities such as the Organization of American States (OAS), European Union (EU) and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), follows months of political tension between Bolivia’s leftist government and right-wing opposition. Sure to contribute to the mounting tension, it was recently reported that eleven people (including an Argentinean journalist) have disappeared in the region of Cordillera, as a result of a violent ambush set off by Bolivian landowners, possibly as means to express their anger over President Morales’ recently proposed land reforms (redbolivia.com). Amid ongoing disputes on a number of fronts, Morales’s government has been very open and willing to allow mediators and members from international organizations to assess and aid in resolving Bolivia’s multiple political struggles.
Read MoreAfter 100 years playing a subordinate role to the United States, Brazil, under Lula, should adopt a more independent
John Galante Elections in Brazil will mark an historic watershed in that country’s relations with the U.S. in the event
Read MoreRelations Soured Once More: Colombia’s Search for Security Renders the Region Insecure, as Ecuador and Venezuela Fume
Conflict Spills Over
The episodically fiery relations between Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador once again flamed as a result of Bogotá ordering its forces to covertly penetrate Ecuadorian territory in an effort to destroy a unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A small group of its members, led by second-ranking officer Raúl Reyes, had encamped one mile from the Colombian border. Bogotá’s actions exacerbated already long-standing tensions with its immediate South American neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even though its resort to arms angered almost all of its South American peers as well as violated the territorial sovereignty of Ecuador, the incursion could be seen as a tactical victory for Bogotá. However, the coup came at the expense of the country’s standing in the rest of the hemisphere. Colombia’s forces not only managed to kill FARC leader Raúl Reyes, but its military units were also able to recover four laptop computers allegedly containing vital information regarding the inner workings of FARC, their political agenda, and links between Venezuelan and Ecuadorian authorities and the guerrilla organization.