Rubrick Biegon - US Power in Latin America: Renewing Hegemony

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This book is an outstanding statement, at the cutting edge of debates, on hegemony and resistance in Latin American and international studies that makes a number of innovative and original developments, not least in coining the term New Latin Left to grapple with geopolitical issues in Latin America and in focusing on the reconstitution of hegemony in the Americas. Adam David Morton, University of Sydney

Though an early-2000s wave of elected leftist leaders challenged US preeminence in Latin America, Rubrick Biegon explains, this preeminenceor hegemonyproved stable. This sweeping survey views twenty-first century USLatin American relations through lenses of trade, security policy, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, and analysis of US discourse, backing it up with innumerable examples from US officials own words. Employing a thoughtfully constructed and richly layered theoretical framework, this book gives us important new tools with which to make sense of recent developments in hemispheric affairs. Adam Isacson, Senior Associate for Defense Oversight, Washington Office on Latin America

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US Power in Latin America

An original account of contemporary USLatin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian and historical materialist approaches to build a novel conceptual framework for analysing US hegemony, extending critical theory in new and exciting directions. It disaggregates US power into distinct forms (structural, coercive, institutional and ideological) to convincingly argue that the United States is remaking its hegemony in the Western hemisphere.

The first decade of the new century saw the ascendancy of leftist and centre-left forces in Latin America. The emergence and consolidation of the New Latin Left signalled a profound challenge to the long-standing hegemony of the United States in the region. This book details the ways in which US foreign policy responded: defining hegemony as a dialectical relationship patterned by multiple and overlapping forms of power, it situates US policy in the context of the Post-Washington Consensus. Making considerable use of confidential diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, it examines the interplay of different facets of US hegemony, which are inextricably bound up in the neoliberalisation of the regions political economy.

This book brings clarity to what remains an open and contested process of hegemonic reconstitution, and promises to be of interest to scholars working in a number of overlapping subject areas, including International Relations (IR), US foreign policy and Latin American studies.

Rubrick Biegon is an Associate Lecturer in International Political Economy in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Prior to coming to Kent, he worked as a policy analyst with a small international consulting firm based in Washington, where his reporting focused on political and economic developments in Latin America and US policy towards the region.

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Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy
Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, City University, and John Dumbrell, University of Durham

This new series sets out to publish high quality works by leading and emerging scholars critically engaging with United States Foreign Policy. The series welcomes a variety of approaches to the subject and draws on scholarship from international relations, security studies, international political economy, foreign policy analysis and contemporary international history.

Subjects covered include the role of administrations and institutions, the media, think tanks, ideologues and intellectuals, elites, transnational corporations, public opinion, and pressure groups in shaping foreign policy, US relations with individual nations, with global regions and global institutions and Americas evolving strategic and military policies.

The series aims to provide a range of books from individual research monographs and edited collections to textbooks and supplemental reading for scholars, researchers, policy analysts, and students.

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US Power in Latin America

Renewing Hegemony

Rubrick Biegon

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The longer-term project that culminated in this book was the product of a collaborative process of intellectual exchange as much as individual initiative. I benefited greatly from the support of friends, family members and co-workers on both sides of the Atlantic. Colleagues at the University of Kent, some of whom have moved onto pastures new, played an outsized role in shaping my research interests over the duration of the project, providing guidance and insight, as well as a great deal of inspiration. Ruth Blakeley has been an invaluable supporter, offering key advice along the way, and enhancing the inquiry from beginning to end. Doug Stokes and Jonathan Joseph also provided vital input as I sifted through the literature on power and hegemony in relation to US foreign policy. In addition, Donna Lee and, from outside Kent, Adam David Morton provided instrumental feedback at a pivotal point in the projects development, helping to refresh the work in a number of ways. I am very appreciative of conversations with Paul Ashby, Govinda Clayton, Philip Cunliffe, Charles Devellennes, Matthew Loveless, David Maher, Andrew Thomson, Harmonie Toros and Tom Watts. In Washington, Patrick Quirk read and commented on much of the writing and, along with others too many to name, helped arrange interviews during the preparatory stages of the research. I would be remiss not to thank the students on my international political economy modules for engaging with some of the themes of this book in creative and often perceptive ways.