ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses international systems theory to the extent that it provides the analytic framework used for selecting, arranging, and comparing data relating to the complex Latin American subsystem. The emphasis here is on the role of theory as an organizing device rather than as explanation, prediction, prescription, or judgment. The international system as conceived in this book is a complex political, military, economic, social, and cultural structure of both power and interdependence. The most important differentiated units in international politics today, as in the past three centuries, are sovereign nation-states. There are multiple approaches to this and all of these approaches to the study of regions are linked by the common idea that geographic proximity defines one of the limits of inquiry. The book composes a particularly pertinent "living laboratory" for analysis.
