Our next several sections will focus on the national foreign policy goals of six South American nations; Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Our criteria for selecting these countries are as follows, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile were chosen because of their historical importance in regional balance of power politics. Venezuela was chosen because of its important role in the current direction of the integration movement, as well as its importance as a regional source of finance and energy. Ecuador was chosen because it is both the headquarters of the new union as well as a country where we conducted numerous interviews and Peru was chosen because of its large, diverse population, and its historic importance in the regional balance of power.

Our objective in this section is to answer the following questions:

1) who are the relevant actors in the creation of national foreign policy and what structures do they operate within?

2) What are the relevant historic foreign policies?

3) What is the current foreign policy? We will begin in alphabetical order starting with Argentina.

By Nathan Gill – Southern Affairs
www.southernaffairs.org

Painting By Popova, “Two Figures”