Thomas Andrew OKeefe - Bush II, Obama, and the Decline of U.S. Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere

Bush II, Obama, and the Decline of U.S. Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere applies competing defi nitions and conceptions of hegemony to various foreign policy initiatives and events during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama to test whether they manifest a decline in traditional United States dominance and leadership in the Western Hemisphere. In particular, the book examines the continued relevancy of the inter-American system, the fail-ure to establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the stillborn Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA). It also discusses the implications of the Peoples Republic of China becoming a major trading partner and important source of fi nancing and investment capital throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The book provides critical reviews of Plan Colombia, the Mrida Initiative, Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas, the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), 100,000 Strong in the Americas , and the restoration of normal U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba. There are extensive analyses, unusual for a work in English, of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra Amrica (ALBA), Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeos (CELAC), and Unin de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR).

Thomas Andrew OKeefe has been the President of Mercosur Consulting Group, Ltd. since 1993 and currently teaches at Stanford University. A dual U.S.Chilean national, he has degrees from Columbia University, Villanova Universitys School of Law, and the University of Oxford. The author of numerous books and articles on Latin America and the Caribbean, he chaired the Western Hemisphere Area Studies program at the U.S. State Departments Foreign Service Institute between 2011 and 2016.

Thomas Andrew OKeefe

First published 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: OKeefe, Thomas Andrew, 1961- author.
Title: Bush II, Obama, and the decline of U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere / Thomas Andrew OKeefe.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017044286 | ISBN 9781138080850 (hbk) | ISBN 9781138080867 (pbk) | ISBN 9781351624299 (epub) | ISBN 9781351624282 (mobipocket/kindle) | ISBN 9781315113197 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: United StatesForeign relationsLatin America. | Latin AmericaForeign relationsUnited States. | United StatesForeign relationsCaribbean Area. | Caribbean AreaForeign relationsUnited States. | United StatesForeign relationsCanada. | CanadaForeign relationsUnited States. | Free Trade Area of the Americas (Organization) | Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (Organization) | United StatesForeign relations20012009. | United StatesForeign relations20092017.
Classification: LCC F1418.O39 2018 | DDC 327.7308dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/20170442

ISBN: 978-1-138-08085-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-08086-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11319-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK

I deeply appreciate the encouragement that my colleagues and friends Annette Hester, Robin King, Barbara Kotschwar, and Carol Wise have extended to me over the years in our mutual quest to create a more economically integrated Western Hemisphere rooted in equity, as well as the intellectual support of decades from Cathy Schneider in deepening my understanding of Latin American politics. I am indebted to Jane Kamide as well, whose retirement offered me the opportunity to get an inside view of how U.S. foreign policy is formulated and implemented while serving as Chair of the Western Hemisphere Area Studies program at the U.S. State Departments Foreign Service Institute between 2011 and 2016. I am also grateful to Stanford University and the trust it has put in me since 2007 to educate its students, and the access it gave me to its rich archival and book collections as well as its data banks and electronic resources, which facilitated writing this book. I especially want to thank the following Stanford University faculty and staff: Rodolfo Dirzo, Herbert Klein, Ivan Jaksic, Adrienne Jamieson, Julie Kennedy, Lynn Orr, Ken Schultz, Stephen Stedman, Megan Gorman, and Elizabeth Senz-Ackermann. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the anonymous reviewer at the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies (MACLAS) journal, Latin American Essays, who faulted an article I had submitted for publication some years ago for not including a discussion of the different theories of hegemony. Although this omission did not prevent the article from being published, it did serve as the catalyst for me to eventually write this book to remedy that oversight.