ABSTRACT
Constructivism can have various and sometimes contentious perspectives on international relations (IR) due to its flexibility in epistemological and methodological approaches. The constructivist analysis of international politics takes into account the context within which actions take place as well as the context of the interpretation and construction of knowledge. The chapter focuses on the international norm Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to highlight the importance of looking at who participates, as well as how and when. It details the constructivist framework to describe and interpret from a Latin American perspective how norms are constructed. The chapter analyzes documents from the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council describing the positions of Latin American countries on R2P. A qualitative content analysis, employed to interpret these documents, was complemented by an interpretation of the statements made by decision-makers in the three case studies: Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.
