REGIONAL PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA: A MULTIFACETED EXPLANATION

Since the 19th century, Latin America has progressively become a zone of peace. Between 1800 and 2007, the region has been affected by only fourteen inter-state wars. In addition, the frequency of inter-state wars has rapidly declined over the decades, generating a consolidated zone of peace. This paper examines the reasons behind regional peace in Latin America, reviewing the main theories of war and peace and assessing their validity in explaining the absence of inter-state wars in the region. The study finds that each one of the theories considered addresses only a single aspect of this phenomenon. Based on that, a multifaceted explanation of regional peace in Latin America is proposed, combining different theories to provide a more complete analysis of the phenomenon. This explanation presents peace in Latina America as the result of two interacting elements: countries’ satisfaction with their borders and the presence of weak states in the region. While recognizing that political regimes can influence countries’ war-proneness (and that democratic regimes tend to be less war-prone than authoritarian regimes), this study shows that democracy is not the ultimate cause of regional peace in Latin America. Indeed, the presence of authoritarian regimes in the region did not hinder the creation of a zone of peace between the 19th and 20th century. However, the study highlights that the spread of democracy in the region helped consolidating the zone of peace and determined its evolution from mere absence of war to institutionalized security community.

Since the second half of the 19th century, some areas of the world have progressively become peaceful. This trend is clear in Latin America, where only fourteen inter-state wars broke out between the 19st and the 20th century, while there has been no inter-state war in the region since 1995.
Historical evidence shows that not only has Latin America been affected by few inter-state wars but it has also witnessed a progressive decline in the frequency of this type of conflicts in the last two century. Indeed, while most of the conflicts erupted during the 1800s, Latin American countries started progressively to establish peaceful relationships with their regional counterparts in the 1900s.
These study addresses three major questions: What are the root causes of the few inter-state wars erupted in Latin America? Why has this region been affected by few inter-state wars? and Why the frequency of these conflicts has progressively declined during the centuries? Before answering these questions, it is essential to clarify the meaning of two key concepts that will recur in this study: war and peace.

Defining war…
In the history of political science, many definitions of war have been proposed, ranging from broader to more restrictive ones. However, there is still no consensus on what war is. This study takes into consideration the definition of war formulated by Small and Singer in their project Correlates of War as it appears to be the most concrete, narrowing down the research to inter-state wars. Small and Singer (1982) define war as inter-state armed conflict among sovereign political units, characterized by at least a thousand battle casualties. This definition links the concept of war to the presence of two elements. The first element is the status of the territorial entities involved in the conflict. Small and Singer's definition focuses on those political entities that are classified as members of the inter-state system, referred to as "states". The second element is the number of military losses, which is to be higher than a thousand units. In this regard, Small and Singer (1982) specify that: "We must define war in terms of violence. Not only is war impossible without violence [...], but we consider the taking of human life the primary and dominant characteristic of war." While being useful to define the object of this study, Small and Singer's definition does not clarify why wars break out. The following section reviews the main theories of war of International Relations to understand the potential root cause of the few inter-state wars occurred in Latin America.

Why does war break out?
In the branch of International Relations, among the main approaches that try to explain war and its root causes are the realistic balance-of-power theory, the geopolitical theories and the theory of territorial conflicts. All of them analyze war taking into account the political dynamics that characterize the international system.
Realistic balance-of-power theories present peace as a result of the presence of balanced strength and military capacities across states at regional or global level. In a world where anarchy is the rule and survival is the primary goal of each political entity, equally distributed military capacities can grant stability, preventing the rise of a hegemonic regime that can dominate the rest of the states (VATTEL, 1758). The balance-of-power breaks when a country starts to gain power over the others, challenging the stability of the international system and creating a security dilemma. Insecurity spreads among the neighbors, which often create a defensive coalition to fight the rising hegemony (MORGENTHAU, 1948;WALTZ, 1979). War therefore results from external balancing operations carried out by the neighbors of the rising power and restore the equilibrium in the international system.
Geopolitical theories look at geographical variables such as the strategic position, the territorial dimensions and the presence of natural resources as key variables that influence countries' behavior in the international system. In particular, Mahan (1890) emphasizes the role of proximity to water as a determinant of the war-proneness of a state. As highlighted in "The influence of sea-power upon history", wars result from inter-state rivalries for the control of seas, which is fundamental to establish commercial routes and increase countries' political power. "The profound influence of sea commerce upon the wealth and strength of countries was clearly seen long before the true principles which governed its growth and prosperity were detected. To secure to one's own people REGIONAL PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA: A MULTIFACETED EXPLANATION a disproportionate share of such benefits, every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these fails by direct violence. The clash of interests, the angry feelings roused by conflicting attempts thus to appropriate the larger share, if not the whole, of the advantages of commerce, and of distant unsettled commercial regions, led to war." (1890) Finally, the theories of territorial conflict link the eruption of wars to the social, economic and political value that countries give to certain territories. One of the leading thinkers of this approach is Vasquez, whose theory mixes Geopolitics and Realism to provide a more complete explanation of the root causes of wars. For Vasquez (1995) interstate conflicts usually arise between neighbor countries mainly due to territorial issues. In particular, war is the consequence of the exacerbation of territorial disputes caused by border incoherence, territorial claims and identity issues. Since the dawn of times, land has been considered as a source of survival for the humankind, providing space to live in, food and essential natural resources. In a world where resources are scarce, war was born as a social practice to preserve and conquer territories with the ultimate goal of granting men's survival. Vasquez highlights that since conflicts arise from territorial disputes, "Once boundaries are accepted, peace can reign."(ibid). Based on this vision, inter-state wars can be prevented by reconciling territorial claims.
While explaining war in different ways, all these theories also integrate an explanation of peace. The next paragraph is dedicated to analyze the notion and the main theories of peace.

Defining peace
The definition of peace is strongly connected with the notion of war. Indeed, peace has frequently been defined as absence of war in the history of political thinking. This identity has been questioned by several philosophers and political scientists, starting from Kant who, in his masterpiece "Toward Perpetual Peace" (1795), highlighted that peace is not just mere absence of war but is also characterized by political and social stability.
In his work, Kant suggests that three conditions are needed for stability to foster peace. The first one is the presence of republics in the international community, that is states characterized by representative governments and separation of powers. "If the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war" (ibid.). Even though republican civil constitutions are key to build peace, they are not sufficient alone. A second element is the creation of a league of nations, that is a federation of free and equal states. "[…] There must be a league of a particular kind, which can be called a league of peace (foedus pacificum), and which […] seeks to make an end of all wars forever. This league does not tend to any dominion over the power of the state but only to the maintenance and security of the freedom of the state itself and of other states in league with it, without there being any need for them to submit to civil laws and their compulsion, as men in a state of nature must submit."(ibid.). The last element for states to build stability and perpetual peace is universal hospitality, which "[…] is not a question of philanthropy but of right. Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility. It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth." (ibid.).
In his masterpiece, Kant also claims that republics (which can be referred today as democracies), are more pacific than other forms of government. This vision has given birth to the theories of democratic peace, which posit that democracies rarely engage in armed conflict with other democratic states. While quantitative researches on war proved that democracies are by no means more pacific than other regimes (SMALL; SINGER, 1976;WRIGHT, 1983), several studies have shown that democracy can contribute to maintain peace (RUSSET; MAOZ, 1993). The following paragraph presents the main theories of peace and sets the scene to analyze regional peace in Latin America.

Where does peace come from?
Democratic peace theorists would say that peace is the result of the concentration of democratic regimes in a specific geographical area. In particular, Neo-Kantian thinkers link peace to the presence of liberal democracies. These are the regimes where the three Kantian conditions have manifested historically, regulating both the civil and political life (DOYLE, 1983a). Separation of powers, representation, transparency in decision-making processes and human rights protection allow liberal democracies to foresee the behavior of their neighbors and establish mutual trust relationship SILVERSON, 1995;LIPSON, 2005). Because they share common values, liberal democracies tend to avoid war and to prefer peaceful settlement of disputes methods (RUSSETT, 1993;DIXON, 1994;OWEN, 1994).
Even though evidence shows that democracies have rarely clashed with one another in violent conflict (RUSSET; MAOZ, 1993), many have argued that autocracies can maintain peace as much as democracies do. Starting from this observation, researchers have begun to investigate on alternative root causes of peace. One of the main critics of the Democratic peace theories is Deudney. He highlights the limits of the Neo-Kantian approach, which provides a monocausal explanation to the absence of war while neglecting other factors that can potentially foster peace, such as the geographical context and the technological capacities of states (DEUDNEY, 2009). While recognizing the presence of Republics as a determinant of peace, Deudney also includes an analysis on the role of geographic variables and the balance-of-power in maintaining stability. In particular, he states that the presence of balance-of-power and territorial obstacles (such as mountains and rivers) helps foster security and stability, decreasing the frequency of inter-state wars. Gibler (2012) links the presence of peace to the resolution of territorial disputes. Peace can only be achieved when inter-state rivalries on the demarcation of borders end. Once borders are accepted, countries start an internal process of demilitarization, which helps establish peaceful relationships among former rivals. Reducing military power allows to reallocate economic resources towards other objectives (i.e.: national Chiara Villani development) with positive impacts on national economic growth. The elimination of territorial threats and the reallocation of economic resources combined together foster economic growth both internally and in neighbor countries. In turn, economic growth influences countries' social structure, fostering the rise of a middle class, whose presence usually leads to democratization processes. According to Gibler, democracy is not the ultimate cause of regional peace. Differently, peace results from the resolution of territorial disputes and the stabilization of borders, which are a precondition to the spread and consolidation of democratic institutions.
Cultural homogeneity has also being considered as a major pillar for building peaceful relationships among countries. In particular, Huntington (1993) states that countries belonging to the same civilization are more likely to establish peaceful relationships, whereas war is often provoked by cultural differences. In his study, Huntington highlights that cultural identity is becoming increasingly important "as the world [politics] will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization." (ibid).
Miller tries to bring together the institutional, territorial and cultural variables in order to elaborate a more comprehensive explanation of peace. In his book "States, nations and great powers" (2007), Miller links peace with the presence of high levels of state-to-nation balance at regional level, that is a high degree of coherence between the regional territorial partition and the national aspirations of the people living in that area. The war-proneness of a region is determined by the combination of two elements: the level of strength/weakness of the neighbor states and the degree of coherence between the political and national borders within the considered area. Peace results from high state-to-nation balance, which depends on two conditions: high coherence between political and national borders (state-to-nation coherence) and the presence of strong states in a certain region. Regarding the first condition, high levels of stateto-nation coherence are ensured when both the political framework and the administrative institutions governing a territory reflect the national aspirations of the people living in that area. This condition results from the resolution of territorial disputes and the elimination of nationalist territorial claims. When high levels of state-to-nation coherence are present, there is a strong identification between the people living in a certain area and the institutions that govern that area. This legitimates the existing borders and helps maintain the regional status quo. Regarding the second condition, the strength and weakness of states is measured by taking into account the efficiency of their institutions as well as their economic and military capacities. Strong states have the legitimate monopoly over the means of violence within their territories, rely on efficient institutions and are supported by solid economies. According to Miller, peace results from the simultaneous presence of strong and coherent states characterized by a well-defined territorial identity, a strong capacity to control revisionist movements and a deep engagement in maintaining the regional status quo.
After having reviewed the main theories of peace it is now time to go back to our research questions and try to find an answer to the dilemma of war and peace.

THE ROOT CAUSES OF INTER-STATE WARS IN LATIN AMERICA
In order to address the first research question, what are the root causes of the few inter-state wars erupted in Latin America?, it is useful to take into consideration the main theories of war analyzed in the previous sections.
When looking at the historical and political context, the motivations and the strategic interests that pushed the Latin American countries to fight inter-state wars between the 19th and 20th century, all conflicts seem to be external balancing operations aimed at preventing a country from breaking the regional balance-of power. This is the case of the War of the Confederation (1837-1839) and the Peru-Bolivian War (1841-1842), both caused by territorial claims and by the attempt of Peru to increase its political influence at regional level, which threatened the status quo. Similarly, the Platine war (1851-1852) resulted from the exacerbation of a territorial dispute on the Cisplatine region, a key area from a strategic and economic perspective. Likewise, the Ecuadorian-Colombian War (or War of the Cauca, 1863) was caused by Cipriano de Mosquera's ambition to restore Gran Colombia, which again altered the regional equilibrium. Finally, the Second (1885) and the Third Central American War (1906) were the consequence of a number of military interventions aimed at unifying the Central American states, which threatened to alter the regional balance-of-power.
The Geopolitical approach is also valid to analyze the Latin American inter-state wars.. Mahan's theory is particularly suited to explain the root causes of the conflicts erupted in the region. Indeed, most of the Latin American wars broke out for the control of water resources such as rivers, lakes and seas. This was the case of the Argentina-Brazil Cisplatine War (1825-1828) and the Platin war (1851-1852), both resulting from a dispute over the Río de la Plata basin; the War of the Triple Alliance (or Lopez War, 1864-1870), erupted due to a rivalry between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil on the Paraná river; the Chaco war (1932)(1933)(1934)(1935) caused by Bolivia's ambitions on the Paraguay river; and the Cenepa war (1995), resulting from the exacerbation of a territorial dispute between Ecuador and Peru over the Cenepa river.
Overall, historical evidence corroborate Vasquez's theory on territorial conflicts. Throughout the history of Latin America, territorial disputes have played a major role in fuelling inter-state wars in the region. Indeed, most of the conflicts between neighbor countries resulted from the exacerbation of territorial disputes for the control of strategic areas, considered as vital from a political, economic and cultural point of view.

WHY IS THERE PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA?
Two more questions remain unanswered: why has Latin America been interested by few inter-state wars? and why the frequency of these conflicts has progressively declined during the centuries? To find an answer, it is useful to consider the main theories of peace reviewed in the previous paragraph. These can be classified in two groups depending on whether the explanations identify democracy or other drivers as the root cause of peace. The first group includes the Democratic Peace theories. Focusing on the role that democracy plays in fostering peace, these theories are useful to explain peace in Latin America from 1980s. However, they cannot explain why there have been few inter-state wars in the region even before the democratization process. A progressive decline in the frequency of inter-state wars in the region in fact has been registered since the end of the 18th century.
While Democratic Peace theories are not valid to explain peace in Latin America before 1980s, a second group of theories tries to fill this gap, taking into consideration different drivers as potential root causes of regional stability. Deudney's theory helps highlights the crucial role that the balance of power played in maintaining peace in the region. Since its independence, Latin America has been been characterized by the presence of strong equilibrium. All countries in the area had almost equal military and economic capacities and, even when unbalances existed, they were not big enough to give birth to hegemonic states. Gibler's theory on territorial peace is also useful to explain peace in Latin America before the democratization. Indeed, evidence shows that countries in the region gradually began to prefer peaceful settlement of disputes methods rather than war. However, Gibler does not clarify the reasons that push countries to solve territorial disputes through peaceful means rather than through war. A third theory considers peace as a cultural phenomenon. According to this view, cultural homogeneity helps establish peaceful relationships among states belonging to the same civilization. This approach can be easily applied to Latin America, where cultural homogeneity is strongly felt across the region. Common languages and traditions result from the fusion of indigenous cultures and European and African civilizations. Latin American peoples also share a common history and values, the same that pushed them to unite and fight together against colonialism in the early 1820s. In the aftermath of the Independence wars, Latin American people started to feel they belonged to a common broad cultural entity. In many cases, this perception gave birth to political movements aimed at transforming this cultural entity into a structured, institutionalized and unified political entity. These common features may have fostered brotherhood among Latin American peoples, making the states in the region less prone to use violence in their relationships with their neighbors. While cultural homogeneity could have had a role in building regional peace in Latin America, this approach does not explain the root causes of the wars erupted, and presents a monocausal explanation of peace.
Miller's theory seems to be more suited to explain peace in Latin America. Here, state-to-nation coherence has been present since its independence, resulting from the interaction of two elements: the rise of nationalist movements and the applications of the uti possidetis principle. Nationalism spread in the early 1800s, when the colonies began to show the first signs of weariness against foreign domination. By the end of the century, anti-colonial sentiments had lead to the creation of independent countries in the region. At local level, nationalism helped build state-to-nation coherence because people could easily identify with the new countries born from the Independence wars. The newborn countries kept the territorial conformation of the former colonial administrative areas (the Spanish viceroyalties and the Portuguese dominions) as their borders were traced by applying the uti possidetis principle. At regional level, nationalism fostered brotherhood among Latin American, building its political discourse on the common history and roots that people across the region. While guiding Latin American in their fight against colonialism, nationalism did not work as a catalyzer for the unification of the region under a single political entity. This was due to the absence of a powerful country that could expand its control over the region. Hence, post-colonialist Latin America was characterized by the lack of a strong central power and the presence of a deep-routed localism. At local level, personalities from the upper-class families and rich landowners, called caudillos, competed to gain power at the local level and developed subnational institutions in their areas of influence. Localism slowed down the creation of strong institutions at all levels and hindered the process of state building in the region, leading to the rise of weak states. Therein lies the paradox: while state-to-nation coherence has characterized Latin America since its Independence, the second condition of peace, the presence of strong states in the region, was not present before the democratization process and still, before the 1980s Latin America was already one of the most peaceful areas of the world.
Even though the theories considered in this section are useful to identify some of the root causes of peace, no one of them provides a complete explanation to the absence of war in Latin America. Each one of the theories reviewed links this phenomenon to a single element (i.e.: the presence of democracies, the absence of territorial disputes, etc.) but fail to consider other relevant variables. In order to elaborate a more exhaustive and multifaceted explanation of regional peace in Latin America it is essential to combine the above-mentioned theories and their main intuitions.

REGIONAL PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA: A MULTIFACETED EXPLANATION
The staring point to solve the paradox mentioned in the previous paragraph is analyzing the effect of the presence of weak states in Latin REGIONAL PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA: A MULTIFACETED EXPLANATION America over regional stability. Weak states are countries that lack control over the means of violence in their territory, that have inefficient institutions and low resources to carry out their basic tasks, as for example ensuring protection to their citizens (CENTENO, 1997). After the decolonization, Latin American countries suffered from both internal and external weakness, which ,helped maintain low levels of war-proneness in the region and lowered the presence of external threats.
Internal weakness was mainly due to the absence of three elements: an elite able to guide its country in the process of state building in the aftermath of the Independence wars; an efficient fiscal system able to reallocate economic resources as to foster economic growth and development; a strong central power that could prevail over localism and centrifugal forces (ibid). According to Tilly's bellicist theory (1985), the presence of these three elements is crucial for war to trigger effective state building processes that lead to the creation of strong countries.
The absence of these conditions in Latin America brought to the creation of weak states. Fragile institutions, a deep-routed localism and the presence of military forces seizing power were the main causes of countries' internal weakness. After the decolonization, Latin America lacked strong elites that could guide the newborn countries through an effective state-building process. This was a legacy of colonialism, when decentralization reforms led to the fragmentation of political power, often was held by caudillos and rich landowners. The decolonization did not mean the end of localism because people were not aiming to overturn the local governments of caudillos. Differently, the goal was to free Latin America from the European domination. While localism survived to the decolonization, the fragmentation of political power and the lack of a strong central power that could grant national security and regional stability were two major concerns for the newborn Latin American countries. In particular, there was a strong need for a ruling class that could concentrate political power in its hands to prevent attempts of secession that could undermine regional stability. These circumstances created an enabling environment for the rise of military regimes in the region, as armed forces were the only elite able to monopolize the means of violence and seize power in Latin American countries. Military governments exploited political power for personal purposes and to satisfy the interests of their supporters, spreading clientelism and hindering the creation of effective institutions. Because they depended on the support of national elites, military government were intrinsically weak. In fact, leaders' legitimacy was strongly linked with their capacity to satisfy the elites' requests. Together with the absence of institutional mechanisms that could regulate the succession of power, these elements caused internal instability, fuelling persistent political fights as well as frequent coup d'etat, uprisings and civil wars.
If on the one hand internal weakness hindered domestic stability, on the other hand it helped countries maintain peaceful relationships with their neighbors in the region. Because they concentrated all their efforts in achieving internal stability, Latin American countries lacked capacities to face or produce any kind of external threat at regional level. Countries in the region shared low demographic levels, insufficient industrialization and low quality technologies. A balanced distribution of military and economic capacities across the region prevented the rise of hegemonic regimes and contributed to spread the idea that neighbors were pacific. Cultural homogeneity also played a key role in making Latin American countries less prone to use violence as a means to solve disputes with their neighbor. Together with the presence of legitimate borders, these circumstances led to absence of external threats, maintained the balance-of-power in the region and helped countries establish peaceful relationships with their neighbors.
Once clarified why Latin America has been interested by few inter-state wars, it is now time to address the second question: what caused the decline in the frequency of wars in Latin America? This means understanding the reasons why countries in the region began progressively to resort to peaceful settlement of disputes rather than fighting against their neighbors. Democratization is key to explain this process. After the rise of democratic governments in Latin America, regional peace strengthened and consolidated, evolving from mere absence of war (cold peace) to security community (hot peace). The spread of democratic institutions, values and norms improved mutual trust among Latin American countries (MILLER, 2007) and, even though territorial disputes continued to emerge, this prevented the exacerbation of inter-state rivalries and the outbreak of wars. The consolidation of democracy, and in particular the diffusion of principles such as political accountability and responsibility, further stabilized the region. By linking political power to public consent, accountability and responsibility pushed political leaders to take into consideration citizens' preferences in policy-making processes. Since war was onerous in terms of human lives and economic resources, political leaders began to solve inter-state rivalries through peaceful and diplomatic means in order to score political points. Thanks to the democratization, Latin America is today one of the most stable peaceful areas of the world.

CONCLUSION
As the case of Latin America shows, non-democratic states can generate and maintain regional peace as much as democracies do, even though peace may consist in mere absence of war. While the presence of democracy cannot be considered as the root cause of regional peace, it is certainly a crucial element for strengthening the stability of the zones of peace. This study also proves that peace cannot be explained by taking into consideration a single root cause. Since regional peace derives from the interaction of a number of elements at the domestic and regional level, it cannot be explained through a monocausal approach. While each of the theories of war and peace reviewed explained a single aspect of regional peace in Latin America, combining their intuitions was essential to provide a more comprehensive explanation of such a complex phenomenon. This study was also an effort to reconcile the different theories of peace and war to prove that they are complementary and can coexist within a common theoretical PAZ REGIONAL NA AMÉRICA LATINA: UMA JUSTIFICATIVA MULTIFACETADA