Inter-American System and Post-Cold War Changes: Kant is the Key

摘要

For the past fifty years, organs of the Inter-American System have been ignored,under-funded, and poorly utilized. After so many years of neglect and abuse, the Organization of American States (OAS) and Inter-American Defense Board (IADB) are entering into a new era of hemispheric cooperation where democracy promotion has replaced Cold War paradigms. Graham Allison's bureaucratic politics approach argues that the various institutions of the Inter-American System will change very little in this new era because of institutional resistance to change. The problem is, contrary to Allison's predictions, the OAS and IADB have made some radical changes. The OAS now plays a very active role in the hemisphere and the IADB carries out new non-traditional military roles. The realist approach argues that the U.S. has simply dropped its Cold War interests for democracy promotion, human rights, and hemispheric cooperation. Rapid institutional change, the realists argue, is directly attributed to pressure brought to bear on the Inter-American System by the powerful U.S. in pursuit of its own new interests.