ABSTRACT
The primary focus of this study has been the development of a zone of peace in the Southern Cone of Latin America. This transformation was far from the inevitable evolution of the Southern Cone regional security complex. On the contrary, until the late 1970s the Southern Cone's fate seemed inexorably marked by competition and distrust, and the resort to military force was not an unthinkable possibility. Nevertheless, after peaks of tension in the second half of the 1970s, the political environment in the region began to change. As the preceding chapters have argued, this transformation was the product of manifold changes in the countries' perceptions, involving a reassessment of their self-perception and priorities, as well as their visions of neighbors and of the regional context. Since the 1980s, the relationships between Argentina and Brazil, and Chile and Argentina have stabilized the quality of their bilateral peace, moving away from negative toward positive peace. These shifts have resulted in the stabilization of regional peace in the Southern Cone. However, this does not seem to be a generalized trend in Latin America, where many disputes and sources of mistrust have survived.
