Paradox of Autonomy: explaining flaws in South American security regionalism

Abstract

This article addresses the South American difficulties in the consolidation of regional security mechanisms, developing the explanatory model of "paradox of autonomy." This was developed through inductive and deductive criteria, based on recent history observations, in order to attain generalizable lessons from a relevant case for South American international relations, and using ratio - nal analytical approaches that allowed their construction within the framework of collective action problems. From the observation on the emergence and performance of the South American Defense Council, it was identified that the allowing conditions for a novel mechanism of regional (collective) autonomy for security, paradoxically offered opportunities for the exercise of national (in - dividual) autonomy. The article concludes that, although the conditions for the paradox of autonomy are difficult to overcome in cases of security regionalism initiatives, there are possibilities to do so. The key would be in less ambitious institutional designs that recognize the inherent difficulties for institutional regional security cooperation in South America.