Major Themes in U.S.-Latin America Diplomatic History

This seminar provides an overview of the most important events and initiatives that have characterized the relationship of the United States of America with its neighbors to the south, including Mexico, the Caribbean (especially Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic), Central America, and South America since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in the early 19th century until the Obama Administration. In particular, the course examines the motivations for the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and the resulting period of blatant interventionism known as "Dollar Diplomacy," the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the brutal Cold War period, as well as policies pursued by the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA). The seminar explores not only what motivated U.S. policy makers and how their polices were implemented (and explains why they either succeeded or failed), but also discusses the impacts on individual countries and/or the region as a whole and the long-term consequences whose repercussions are still being felt today. The course also examines the major features of the inter-American system from the Pan American Union to the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS) and its continued relevancy in light of new institutional frameworks such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) that exclude the United States of America.