As the result of an international, interdisciplinary conference convened at Johns Hopkins by the Latin America in a Globalizing World Initiative, Dr. Christy Thornton (Assistant Professor, Sociology) and Dr. J. Luis Rodríguez (PhD 2021, Political Science) have published a special issue of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs: “The Liberal International Order and the Global South: A View from Latin America.”

The special issue brings together historians, sociologists, and political scientists to ask what Latin American experiences in different domains and historical periods can tell us about the Liberal International Order (LIO) as it now fractures and reconstitutes. The core argument among these essays is that, despite inherent contradictions and tensions, Latin American engagements with the LIO have attempted to level the playing field and prevent the reinforcement of existing international hierarchies. The contributions to this special issue demonstrate that Latin American actors were not mere norm-takers and passive supporters of the LIO. Latin American actors have often sought to hold the leaders of the LIO to their own promises. They have insisted that the rules of a rules-based order should apply not just to the poor, weak or indebted but to the rich, strong and powerful as well.

Rodríguez & Thornton’s introduction is available open access.

Special Issue: The Liberal International Order and the Global South: A View from Latin America
Cambridge Review of International Affairs 35, no. 5 (2022)

Research Articles:

• Tom Long & Carsten-Andreas Schulz
  “Republican internationalism: the nineteenth-century roots of Latin American contributions to international order“
• Juan Pablo Scarfi
  “The Latin American politics of international law: Latin American countries’ engagements with international law and their contradictory impact on the liberal international order“
• Christy Thornton
  “Establishing the limits of the liberal international order: Latin America and the demand for development“
• Cassandra V. Emmons
  “Designing suspension clauses to defend democracy: lessons from negotiating the OAS’s Washington Protocol“
• J. Luis Rodriguez
  “Contemporary humanitarians: Latin America and the ordering of responses to humanitarian crises“
• Guilherme Stolle Paixão e Casarões & Déborah Barros Leal Farias
  “Brazilian foreign policy under Jair Bolsonaro: far-right populism and the rejection of the liberal international order“