Asymmetry and Agenda-Setting in US-Latin American Relations: Rethinking the Origins of the Alliance for Progress

Can weak actors defeat strong ones in nonviolent settings, and if so, how? If power generally leads to preferred outcomes in international relations, and if power asymmetry has been the defining characteristic of US relations with Latin America, what explains the recurrent US difficulty in shaping inter-American relations against Latin American wishes? This paper builds on recent work on asymmetric conflict, derives new hypotheses about nonviolent asymmetric interactions, and tests these through rigorous process-tracing with primary documents in a least-likely case: the origins of the Alliance for Progress. My central argument is that weak states have the motivation and ability to shape the regional policy agenda during noncrisis periods; thus, because great powers in crisis situations select options from this agenda, our historical knowledge of relations between regional powers and their weaker neighbors dramatically overstates the influence of hegemony and understates the autonomous agency of weaker states. A basic principle of bargaining is that actors with greater power and resources will tend to achieve more favorable outcomes than their weaker counterparts. However, we now know in security studies that in fact the weaker side often wins wars. Can weaker states exert similar influence outside the context of war? I suggest that the underlying source of victory for weak powers against stronger ones in both violent and nonviolent situations is the same - an asymmetry of interest that enhances the weaker side’s motivation - but the mechanism through which the weaker party implements this advantage differs. During violent conflicts, weak actors win by signaling their resolve (e.g. through casualty tolerance); in nonviolent interactions, weak actors win by setting the agenda while stronger powers direct their attention elsewhere. The power of agenda-setting has been amply demonstrated in American politics and public policy, but has seen far less application in IR. Although many works on US-Latin American relations use the region’s fundamental asymmetry of power as the starting point for their analysis, I argue that the fundamental determinant of regional outcomes in US-Latin American relations has not been the imbalance of power but rather the asymmetry of interest. For all the accusations of interventionism, the United States has had difficulty determining outcomes in the hemisphere, whether in terms of a Latin American country’s form of government, development strategy, or foreign policy. Why? Inter-American relations are usually far more consequential for Latin American states than for the United States, so Latin American countries are more motivated to pursue their preferred outcomes. As a regional hegemon, the US has directed its attention towards other great powers, while Latin American countries have been able to set the menu of options to which the US returns in moments of hemispheric crisis. The paper analyzes these issues through the least likely case of the Alliance for Progress. Theoretically, this is a least likely case for Latin American states to influence US foreign policy because US power preponderance was at its peak in the early years of the Cold War. It is also a least likely case in historiographical terms because it is commonly interpreted as an initial triumph for the Kennedy Administration’s foreign policy, buying Latin American support in the struggle against Communism after the Cuban Revolution. However, the original proposal for such an alliance came from Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek, before the Cuban revolution; although Eisenhower basically ignored on the idea, Kennedy picked it up. Though these facts are known (and briefly noted in the literature), we have not previously learned how Kubitschek’s “Operation Pan-America” idea traveled across the region, gained traction in both Latin America and the US, and endured as a live policy option on the inter-American agenda. I employ published primary sources, including foreign ministry documents from Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, as well as declassified US government documents, to conduct rigorous qualitative tests of causal connections between Kubitschek’s proposal and Kennedy’s, demonstrating how Kubitschek’s ideas stayed on the agenda through dissemination to other Latin American countries, reception by JFK’s presidential campaign, and availability to both executive and Congressional leaders during Cuba policy debates.