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Farer, Tom, ed. Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996. 416pp. $19.95
The United States is fortunate to be in a hemisphere relatively free of the recent troubling regional trends. One such trend is the deterioration of states, resulting in the unraveling of economies and the breakdown of civil society and its complementary form of democratic government. Perhaps, however, the withering away of the state is creating a positive effect in Latin America and the Caribbean. As Beyond Sovereignty reveals, state sovereignty is diminishing as a result of this hemisphere's growing dedication through "collective defense" to the full political institutionalization of democracy. Beyond Sovereignty explains this regional trend, which the United States must apprehend as one of the most positive geopolitical dynamics within the current "Revolution in Security Affairs."
Beyond Sovereignty is a collection of studies by distinguished scholars on Latin America and the Caribbean. They focus on the institution of democracy and its "collective defense" in the region by a variety of state and nonstate actors. They are the result of an exploration by the Inter-American Dialogue of a call by the Organization of American States (OAS), in Resolution 1080, for "collective" responses to violations of the democratic process within the Americas. The studies examine the roles of governments and political movements within the various countries, the effects of U.S. policies, and the political forces within international and nongovernmental organizations that are subsuming state sovereignty in terms of the region's adherence to the strengthening of democracy. The book features case studies of a retrospective nature on Chile, El Salvador, Haiti, and Peru, and the struggles within those countries relative to the establishment of democratic political practices. The book also provides studies that look toward the futures of Mexico and Cuba and what they may hold with...