Autonomy in Foreign Policy: A Latin American Contribution to International Relations Theory

Autonomy is a concept constantly referred to in Latin American foreign policy analysis, especially with respect to Argentina and Brazil. As great powers continue to exert effective control over peripheral economies and their political decision making, autonomy emerges as a possibility for self-determination in the areas where hegemonic powers’ economic, political, and cultural interferences are expressed. Although this is not a new concept, the quest for autonomy within the “global periphery”—and elsewhere too—still remains relevant. Helio Jaguaribe and Juan Carlos Puig’s theoretical approaches are fundamental epistemological contributions to international relations (IR), not only in South America (where the theoretical approach was first developed) but also to the wider IR field outside the mainstream scholarship. In line with global historical changes, autonomy took on some subsequent new meanings, which led to new and heterogeneous formulations that transformed, and in certain cases also contradicted, the very genesis of the idea of autonomy. As a result, the so-called autonomy “with adjectives” emerged within IR peripheral debates. The 21st century witnessed the rebirth of the concept amid the rise of multilateralism and the new Latin American regionalism, which brought its relational character to the fore. Some of the new approaches to autonomy, especially from Brazil, used the concept as a methodological tool to understand the historical evolution of the country’s foreign policy. As such, autonomy and its theoretical reflection remain central to the analyses and interpretations of the international relations of peripheral countries, and it is in this sense that the autonomy can be highlighted broadly as a Latin American contribution to IR discipline. The concept of autonomy has a unique and foundational content referred to the discussion of the asymmetries in the global order. Studying autonomy is critical to understanding peripheral countries’ problems and dynamics.

Jazz

This chapter examines the practices that define jazz as an art form, including its rhythmic character, its harmonic language, and its distinctive approach to melody. Issues of swing, of the creativity of jazz that is found within its harmonic realization and chord voicings, and of the character of melodic invention in jazz are all considered. The nature of improvisation as a form of pathfinding is also discussed, with particular foci including ethical issues in performance and the artistic obligations under which jazz players perform, group attention and the way attention is distributed across players, jazz as a representational art and the ways we can see representational content within it, the special way that collective intention and distributed creativity work within an improvising ensemble, and relations between jazz and another great American contribution, philosophical Pragmatism.

WAGE FLEXIBILITY, EXCHANGE-RATE COMPETITIVENESS AND FULL EMPLOYMENT: THE FIRST HERETICS

ABSTRACT This paper discusses Keynes’ and Kalecki’s rejection of the notion that downward wage flexibility would ensure full employment, recollecting also Steindl’s stagnation theory, which extends to the long-run Kalecki’s ideas. It then considers the association between wage fall and currency depreciation and examines the Latin American contribution to the arguments of why currency devaluation may depress aggregate demand. Afterwards, it briefly reflects on the economic policy consequences that the authors studied here inferred from their analysis. It finally adds a succinct remark on the author’s empirical findings on this issue.

Folkloristic Practices in a Converging Hyper Era

This chapter suggests a paradigm shift in folklore and folklife studies in the twenty-first century following the "era of communication" and "professionalization of time and space" in the twentieth century. Characterized as a "hyper era" represented by keywords of convergence, practice, and frame informed by digital culture rather than the previous period's analog signification of performance, symbol, and structure, the new epoch signals a turn toward an understanding of social praxis anticipated by intellectual movements in Europe and Asia. The American contribution is theorizing of individualism and organization in everyday life.