Event

The late nineteenth century marked the beginning of the modern multilateral order, laying the foundation for the international system we see today. In response to new forms of communication and transportation, European powers and the United States institutionalized international law and diplomacy, creating the precursors to today’s international organizations. In the wake of the First World War, these states formalized and expanded this order, most notably through the League of Nations—or so the story goes. 

We recenter this narrative, instead emphasizing Latin America’s place in the “transformation of the world.” In doing so, our account challenges the common notion that the Global North propagated a world order without the input or influence of the South. As the first group of states to emerge from colonialism, Latin America developed a republican vision. International order should be governed in accordance with self-determination and the rights of weaker states—a sharp contrast in a world of empires. Latin Americans’ own experiences of decolonization and intervention conditioned their international involvement, even as the region’s elites enacted similar “civilizing missions” on their own populations. When this inter-imperial order collapsed in the flames of the First World War, Latin Americans again pressed for a more equal order of states. In doing so, Latin American ideas and institutions shaped the development of global politics, but not always in the direction they desired. 

This talk (and related in-progress book) draws on Tom’s research with Carsten-Andreas Schulz on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council project, “Latin America and the Peripheral Origins of Nineteenth-Century International Order.” Related co-authored publications appear in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Foreign Policy, inter alia.

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