ABSTRACT
Certain realities and norms of Latin American international politics have been violent in nature. This chapter deals with conflict involving the threat or use of force in the regional subsystem and efforts to resolve such conflicts. Violence in the Latin American subsystem has arisen essentially from five sets of sources or causes: boundary and territorial disputes, competition for resources, imperial and power disputes, ideological competition, and migration of people and goods. Latin American regional and subregional patterns, especially those involving the distribution of power, are directly linked to conflict analysis. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union attempted to create loyal Communist parties in Latin America and establish traditional diplomatic relations at the same time. A new factor entered the Latin American subsystem after World War II with the creation of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Latin American states comprising the Contadora Group organized themselves at a summit meeting held on the Panamanian island of Contadora in 1983.
