Autonomy and International Relations: Analysis of the Proposals Developed in Latin America

Abstract

A major portion of the academic production developed in Latin America by the international affairs discipline and, in particular, by the foreign policy field, has focused on the autonomy. Indeed, renowned scholars have approached this concept by using different theoretical methods in search of the potential application to the Latin American reality. The article intends to study the main autonomy proposals, using the analytic tools provided by the discussion between rationalists and reflectivists. This debate addresses the deepest aspects of the knowledge creation, the method and the world vision; what underlies the assumptions or premises of any theory and supports it from end to end. The purpose is to overcome the traditional thoughts focused on classifying such notions according to their theoretical affiliations or around similar assumptions. In this way, a state-of-the-art is submitted with a new analytic perspective, which unveils and challenges our traditional way of understanding the international reality. The foregoing allows finding out the effects of adopting methods and world visions specific for solving problems of huge complexity which demand the expansion of the analytical and theoretical spectrum for such purpose.