ALBA AS A NEOBOLIVARIAN CHALLENGE: PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/41945947
• Pages: 235-259
• Published date: 01 July 2011
• Date: 01 July 2011
• Author: H. Michael Erisman

ALBA AS A NEOBOLIVARIAN CHALLENGE:

PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS

H. Michael Erisman

Indiana State

University

Abstract

The

ALBA

project

(Alianza

Bolivariana

para

las

Américas

-

Bolivarian

Alliance for the

Americas)1

undertaken

by

Cuba and

Hugo

Chávez's

government

in Venezuela

is

important

not

only

in

a

bilateral

sense

(i.e.,

its

significance

for

Havana and

Caracas),

but

it also has

larger implications

with

respect

to the

dynamics

of

integration

politics

in

Latin

America and US attitudes/

policies

toward the

organisation's

two

leading

governments.

Unfortunately

the

efforts of

this

unique

experiment

in

providing

an alternative

model

for

developmental

cooperation

have

gone

largely

unnoticed

outside

the

region.

Neither

the mass

media nor

the

general

public, especially

in

North

America,

seems

to have

any

idea

that

ALBA

even

exists,

let alone

that

it is

seeking

to

mount a

challenge

to

existing

integration

paradigms

and

in

particular

those

neoliberal initiatives

emanating

from

Washington.

This article

is intended to

help

in

rectifying

such

oversights.

Keywords:

PanAmericanism,

NeoBolivarianism,

ALBA,

Washington, hegemony,

HugoChávez

Introduction

The

key

analytical

tool that

will be used

to tie

together

the main

components

of this

exploration

is the

growing

confrontation

between

two

very

different

and

ultimately

incompatible

grand

models

of

hemispheric

integration

- NeoPanAmericanism

and

NeoBolivarianism.

NeoPanAmericanism

,

which

Washington

champions,

revolves

around

the

notion that

a process

should

be

implemented

which

in effect would

represent

a contemporary

economic

manifestation

of

the classical

PanAmerican

ideal of

hemispheric

cooperation

which focused

primarily

on

political/security

issues. The

OAS (Organization

of American

States)

was the

institutional

vehicle

created

in

1948 to facilitate

and orchestrate

this

more traditional

view of collaboration.

Like

its

predecessor,

NeoPanAmericanism

implies

participation

by

and,

at least

from

Washington's

perspective,

a leadership

role

for the United

States.

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236 ACADEMIC

ARTICLE

-

H.

MICHAEL

ERISMAN

Inextricably

linked to this

vision is

Washington's

desire

to convert the

entire

hemisphere

to a

neoliberal

economic

system.

Many

Latin Americans

and

certainly

the

Cuban/Venezuelan

leadership

are

rather

sceptical

about this

scenario,

doubting

that their

individual countries

will be able to fare

very

well

in

what would

basically

be a no-holds-barred

competition

with one of

the

world's

greatest

centres

of

economic

power.

The

most vociferous

critics,

with Havana and Caracas at

the

forefront,

see this

blueprint

as little more than

a formula

for the United

States

to re-establish

tight

economic

hegemony

over the

region

and

thereby

drive

the

hemispheric

nations

back into

counterdevelopmental dependency relationships

with

Washington.

In

the context

of

the

early

twenty-first

century,

the NAFTA/FTAA

project

embraced

by

Washington

has been

widely

seen

throughout

the

hemisphere

as

the

framework

within

which the United

States

hopes

to

put

into

place

its reformulated

neoliberal

version of

PanAmericanism.

NeoBolivarianism

represents

the

Hispanic

(and Anglophone

Caribbean)

alternative

to a landscape

such

as that outlined

above that would be dominated

by

the United

States.

The

key

idea

here is that

any

contemporary

developmental

cooperation

schemes

launched

by

hemispheric

states should be modelled

along

the

lines of

Simón Bolivar's

vision

of a politically

unified

Latin America that would

be

clearly separate

from and

independent

of the Colossus

to its north. As

such,

this

approach

rejects,

at

least

for

the time

being, any

significant decision-making

involvement

in

the

developmental

process

on

Washington's part.

Instead it sees

the

whole

enterprise

unfolding

under

Latin American

(rather

than

US)

leadership,

the

ultimate

goal

being

to

achieve

a level of

integration

that would

put

the

hemispheric

community

(defined

as South

America and

the

Caribbean

Basin

countries)

in

a

position

where

its

pooled

economic

power

would to

a great

extent be sufficient

to counterbalance

that

of the United States. At this

point,

then,

the

hemispheric

nations should

be able

to function

very effectively

in

negotiating

the

terms of

their economic relations

with

Washington

since

they

would be

operating

from a

position

of collective

strength.

Not surprisingly

given

its

desire

to

inject

a strong

South-South

dimension

into its

international/hemispheric

relations

and its

penchant

for

playing

the

Latin

American David to

the US

Goliath,

Havana has

long

been an advocate of

NeoBolivarianism

in

one

form

or

another.

Indeed,

as noted

by

Luis

Suárez,

'the

Revolution has

always posited

the doctrine

of

latinamericanismo

,

adopted

in

the

Cuban

constitution

of

1976,

which seeks

the

integration

of Latin

American and

Caribbean

nations'.2

What

has,

of

course,

changed

this

policy

equation

rather

dramatically

in recent

years

has

been the

emergence

of

Hugo

Chávez's

government

in Caracas not

only

as an

increasingly important

economic

partner

of the Cuban

International

Journal

of Cuban Studies

3.2 & 3.3 Summer/Autumn

2011