The Construction of a Latin American Interstate Culture of Rivalry

This paper merges constructivist theoretical insights into the rival role identity, rival role relationships, and the resulting culture of anarchy that characterizes the interstate system with recent empirical measures of rivalry. This project is carried out through an examination of the Latin American regional subsystem, which has already received some attention from analysts concerned with interstate culture, largely because of the relative lack of interstate conflict in the region. The dyadic relationships of 17 Latin American states and the culture they produce are examined between 1948 and 1992. The paper employs simultaneous equation modeling to capture aspects of the co-constitution of these agents and structures, consistent with constructivist theory. The results indicate that the Lockean culture of anarchy and the adoption of a dyadic rival role relationship are affected by a variety of factors emphasized by realists, liberals, and constructivists in the Latin American context.