The global resurgence of right-wing populism has prompted a reexamination of the “Liberal International Order” (LIO), the democratic norms, economic openness, and multilateralism promoted globally by the United States and its allies since the mid-20th Century. However, Latin America is largely absent from these discussions, and those analysts that take note of the region describe it as either a passive recipient of the LIO’s norms or an impediment to its solutions. Convened by American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Latin America in a Globalizing World Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, the Latin America in the Liberal International Order project aims to address this research gap by examining the region’s role in the development and transformation of the LIO. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the globe, a November 2019 research workshop in Baltimore addressed a variety of topics, from Latin America’s contributions to the LIO to its historical and present relationship with it. These discussions are a starting point for new research and impactful publications on the region in the current historical moment. Several papers have been published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

This project engages several CLALS-affiliated faculty from across Schools and Colleges at American University and builds upon related Center-sponsored efforts examining Latin America’s relationship with the International Liberal Order. Among those contributing papers to the colloquium are scholars participating in the Robert A. Pastor North American Research Initiative, which includes among its foci a concern with the normative and institutional frameworks that reflect cooperation and competition between the United States and Mexico. The initiative will also draw from and elaborate on work undertaken in past CLALS projects that resulted in an edited volume on Brazil's changing role in regional and global affairs, and in two special journal issues resulting from our “Hemisphere in Flux” project, which assessed the state of inter-American relations at the beginning of the decade.