ABSTRACT
The key focus of this book is, as already discussed, the processes of bilateral rapprochement between Argentina and Brazil, and Argentina and Chile. In trying to explain the causes of the rapid and far reaching development of the former dyad vis-à-vis the slower and less committed development of the latter dyad, I will study and compare domestic economic and political conditions in all three countries, their foreign policy orientations, and the evolution of their bilateral relations. The focus is mostly on the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, for it was then that both relationships reached their peaks of tension, which were then followed by processes of rapprochement. The underlying assumption is that both domestic and international circumstances influenced the way in which political actors and elites perceived the needs of their countries, and the way they ranked their countries' priorities. These perceptions were also influenced by existing foreign policy traditions or historical foreign policy orientations. The combination of perceptions and foreign policy tradition translated, consequently, into a particular set of policy attitudes toward their neighbors (see figure 2.1).
