Customer Reviews

In the Shadow of the United States: Democracy and Regional Order in the Latin Caribbean

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Intelligently written, this book did not assume I knew too much about the Caribbean situation (I didn't) nor did it dumb it down. With particular attention to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama, I feel I have gained an invaluable insight into Latin Caribbean political history (and to a certain extent, through comparison, the nature of democratization elsewhere from the latter part of the twentieth century through today).

For anyone interested in the Latin Caribbean situation or processes of democratization, I highly recommend this book.

How is the process of democratization different in those countries influenced by the United States? Being so close to this world power, the Latin Caribbean should have been one of the first regions, and not one of the last, to become democratic. An intersection between Comparative Politics and International Relations, the book portrays democratization not as a purely domestic process but as a regional one. It also shows the limits of US influence; US power distorted regime trajectories, without being sufficient to determine their outcomes. This book is central to understanding the impact of US efforts to promote democracy and the international dimension of regime transitions. It is also useful to grasp the configuration of the Latin Caribbean as a distinct sub-region.

"In the Shadow of the United States" is an interesting contribution to the study of US-Latin American relations because it factors the intricate political calculations that domestic actors in the region, as well as their US counterparts, in the formulation of their bilateral foreign policy. In the past, the sole variable used for the study of bilateral relations was the historical and political situations that occurred in both sides of the border, but the interplay between them, as well as the implicit characterizations of what each policy agent thought of the other, was left out the equation.

This book bridges the gap with an interesting theoretical approximation. To empirically attest the thesis, the book presents three interesting case studies about the situations in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama. The presentation in these cases is not historically exhaustive, yet they are developed as a way to introduce the reader, very briefly, about the main argument. In the first two cases, the wealth of primary resources introduces a solid backing for the principal actor's conception of their own national interests, and what they think their counterpart's judgment is about. Unlike the previous two cases, the relative lack of primary sources in the treatment of the Panamanian situation is perhaps the biggest handicap. However, the author does consult a wealth of information on Panamanian history circa 1968, the Torrijos years and the events leading to the 1989 US intervention in Panama which proves an adequate treatment.

Nonetheless, the book proves to be interesting read for all those interested in US-Latin American relations.