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From antagonistic autonomy to relational autonomy: A theoretical reflection from the southern cone
Latin American Politics and Society, Spring 2003 by Russell, Robert, Tokatlian, Juan Gabriel
In summary, since the end of the 1980s, "realism of the periphery" has been displaced, especially in the Southern Cone, by the utilitarian current that identifies political realism in concordance with what is "historically necessary," or the concrete calculation of means and ends. At present, the problem of autonomy occupies a place of secondary importance in Latin American literature on IR and foreign policy (although recently interest in this theme seems to be emerging gradually, for example, in Brazil; see Jaguaribe 2000; Lafer 2000). Nevertheless, in the early 1990s several doctoral dissertations conducted in the United States once again took up the issue of the external autonomy of Latin America and the Caribbean (Tollefson 1991; Hardt 1991; Pinal-Calvillo 1994).
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REDEFINING AUTONOMY
Recent changes in the world (contemporary globalization and the end of the Cold War) and in the Southern Cone (democratization and integration) call for detailed reexamination of the concept of autonomy as a condition, that is, the ability of countries to make decisions independently of the desires, preferences, or orders of others. Such changes also cloud the meaning of autonomy as an objective national interest, its place with respect to other interests of similar importance (security and welfare), and the nature of those policies developed to achieve it. The resignification of the concept of autonomy proposed here is based on the following assumptions:
* Contemporary globalization, the end of the Cold War, and integration and democratization processes in the region have modified the Latin American countries' "context for action."
* The multiple references in specialized IR literature to the increasing reduction of state autonomy are based on a traditional view of autonomy, and consequently are anachronistic. Most of these references point to the negative impact exerted by the new global context on the autonomy of states but fail to consider that this very context offers new conditions of possibility and development for autonomy.
* As in other phases of the interstate system and transnational society, autonomy, as a condition, is closely related to countries' position in the global power structure and the form in which they use their resources of power. Multiple factors other than the distribution of power, however, increasingly affect the patterns of relations among countries; in particular, the networks, norms, and institutions that link them, as well as the characteristics of states (Zacher 1992, 63; Keohane and Nye 1977, 54-58).
* Internal factors play an important role in maintaining and expanding the degree of autonomy exercised by each country (for example, transformative capacity or the ability to adapt to the world's economic and technological realities, political stability, the strength of institutions, and the competence of elite groups).11
* The new "context for action" in the subregion favors the transition from an autonomy defined by contrast to one constructed in the context of relations, which we denominate "relational autonomy."
