Why was regionalism a political problem for Latin America

The twenty-first century has witnessed a change of era in Latin American regional governance projects. Those projects seek-explicitly or implicitly-to reduce the influence of countries north of the Rio Grande in political, economic and social processes and outcomes in the region.

With these regional policy initiatives has come a new academic focus on diplomacy and regional integration. In a field loaded with studies and analyses that focus on U. S. hegemony and U. S. foreign policy, often at the expense of understanding regional dynamics and inter-state relations, this new field of inquiry is a welcome-if a little overdue-development.