Table Of ContentBush 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 People’s 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 Mérida 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 A lianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra
América (ALBA), Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños
(CELAC), and Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR).
Thomas Andrew O’Keefe 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
University’s 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 Department’s
Foreign Service Institute between 2011 and 2016.
Bush II, Obama, and the
Decline of U.S. Hegemony
in the Western Hemisphere
Thomas Andrew O’Keefe
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
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work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: O’Keefe, Thomas Andrew, 1961- author.
Title: Bush II, Obama, and the decline of U.S. hegemony in the Western
Hemisphere / Thomas Andrew O’Keefe.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2017044286 | ISBN 9781138080850 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781138080867 (pbk) | ISBN 9781351624299 (epub) |
ISBN 9781351624282 (mobipocket/kindle) | ISBN 9781315113197 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: United States–Foreign relations–Latin America. |
Latin America–Foreign relations–United States. | United States–
Foreign relations–Caribbean Area. | Caribbean Area–Foreign relations–
United States. | United States–Foreign relations–Canada. | Canada–Foreign
relations–United States. | Free Trade Area of the Americas (Organization) |
Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (Organization) |
United States–Foreign relations–2001–2009. | United States–Foreign
relations–2009–2017.
Classifi cation: LCC F1418.O39 2018 | DDC 327.7308–dc23
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
In memory of my father Thomas Augustus O’Keefe
(1933–2000) and my mother Rosa Maria
Valenzuela Ferrari (1929–2010).
Contents
Acknowledgments viii
1 What Is Hegemony and When Has the
United States of America Been a Hegemon? 1
2 The Inter-American System under the Aegis of
United States Hegemony 29
3 A Post-Hegemonic Inter-American System 59
4 The Emergence and Collapse of the Free Trade
Area of the Americas 86
5 The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas 110
6 China in Latin America and the Caribbean 125
7 The Record on Other Major United States Foreign
Policy Initiatives in the Western Hemisphere
under George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama 153
8 The Current State of Aff airs and Future Ramifi cations 183
Index 195
Acknowledgments
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 dec-
ades from Cathy Schneider in deepening my understanding of Latin American
politics. I am indebted to Jane Kamide as well, whose retirement off ered 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 Department’s 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 Sáenz-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 diff erent 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.
1 What Is Hegemony and When
Has the United States of
America Been a Hegemon?
Introduction
T he genesis for this book is the fl urry of discussions in the media and academic
circles on the purported decline of U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere
that coincided with the start of the twenty-fi rst century. These assertions blos-
somed following the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, as the
administration of George W. Bush concentrated its attention on eliminating
Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamist cells in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and
Somalia. There was a widespread sentiment that because of this new focus, the
United States was “ignoring” Latin America and the Caribbean. This period also
coincided with the election of leftist governments in many Latin American coun-
tries that frequently adopted policy positions that were blatantly hostile to the
agenda long promoted by Washington, DC. Unlike the response that might have
been seen in the past, the United States now seemed to acquiesce to the new
status quo in the Americas. This book tests the thesis of whether there has indeed
been a decline in the hegemony traditionally exercised by the United States in the
Western Hemisphere since at least the end of the nineteenth century.
At the outset, it is important to underscore that this book is about hegemony
and not about power per se. Although the United States emerged as the sole
superpower after the end of the Cold War, with cumulative economic, military,
and other capabilities, preponderant capabilities across the board do not guar-
antee eff ective infl uence in any given arena.1 For one thing, American domi-
nance in the international security arena no longer translates into eff ective
leverage in the international economic arena, as the United States faces rising
economic challengers with their own agendas and with greater discretion in
international economic policy. 2 Accordingly, this book focuses on those inter-
national relations theories where the concept of hegemony is a key component
for explaining United States foreign policy and actions. It also addresses the
conception of hegemony as developed by the Italian sociologist and neo-Marxist
Antonio Gramsci. Furthermore, this book does not attempt to wade into the
lively debate within the international relations fi eld over which conception of
hegemony is more valid, or to propose yet another theory of international
r elations, for that matter. Instead, its goal is less ambitious. It utilizes existing
defi nitions and notions of hegemony to answer the question of whether its
