The Legacy of Westphalia and the emergence of Post-Westphalianism in South American Security
Keywords:
International security , regional security , South America , Westphalia treaty , Madrid treaty , post-WestphaliaCopyright (c) 2013 Marcos Aurelio GUEDES DE OLIVEIRA, Carlos Federico DOMÍNGUEZ AVILA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This article discusses Westphalia legacy and the emergence of a post-Westphalia reality in the 21st century debate about South American security. Due to historic issues, such as social exclusion, South American nations are still building a Westphalia state anchored in modern national institutions. At the same time these nations have been facing the challenges from threats of post-Westphalian nature, such as transnational crime. The argument here is that in order to understand developments in regional security in the region, one has to regard Westphalian and post-Westphalian paradigms as complementary. National states act according to the principles of Westphalia but also seek collective and regional action in order to deal with changes at the regional and global level that have brought post-Westphalian issues to the center of security concerns.