ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the overall panorama of the international relations of the Latin American and Caribbean region. It examines studies of a general scope that deal broadly with the structure and conditions of the region and its subregions within the international system. The earliest general treatments of Latin America's international relations were in the historical and legal-institutional traditions, which have been carried forward to the present day. Latin American international politics, and particularly the systems mode of analysis that was a fundamental development in the study of IR, gained increasing prominence. Works on Latin America's international political economy that appeared in the nineteenth century leaned toward particular rather than general inquiries. A considerable theoretical literature of general scope has been produced with direct reference to Latin America and the Caribbean. After the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917, Marxist-Leninist theorists were skeptical about the position of Latin America in their strategy for world revolution.
