Viability of the development of a Security Community from the South American Defence Council

Abstract

Using Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), helped by constructivism as an international relations theory, this paper studies the establishment of a Security Community by the South American Defence Council (SDC), within the Union of South American Nations (USAN). Besides the rationalist elements involved in the definition of States’ foreign policy, reflexive perspectives from international relations will be employed, since they are an essential part of the process for establishing a Security Community. Shared identities, values and meanings, become as important as rational objectives, being the relationship between these two elements what would allow, under certain circumstances, the establishment of a Security Community for the region.