Transnational Historical Bloc and the Architecture of Peace in South America

Abstract

Texto da comunicação apresentada a 53rd ISA Annual Convention, San Diego, Ca., USA, 1- 4 April 2012 ; This paper aims to discuss the South American's transnational historical bloc formation and development towards the architecture of peace in South America. The conceptualization of peace in South America has often been characterized as being an "anomaly" in terms of inter-state conflict, due the existence of long periods of peace (here understood as the absence of direct state conflict). In order to understand such configuration of peace, it is used a neogramscian perspective of power formation in terms of cohesion and consensus, which represents the willingness of a dominant class(es) that forms the historical bloc. Thus, the internationalization of such concept it is based on the transnationalization of such dominant class(es) across, in this case, South America states and, consequently, forming a transnational historical bloc. It is argued that the transnational historical bloc has been present among South America countries and has directly influenced the process of peace in the region.