Política externa argentina do governo Menem: das "relações carnais" ao Mercosul

Abstract

Due to the international facts which took place from 1989 onwards, the Latin American countries felt the urgency of redirecting their external acting as a way of achieving a better insertion in the international scenario.

In this sense, the aim of this study is to analyze the changes which occurred in the external policy of the Argentinean Republic, more specifically in the period comprehended between the years of 1989 and 1999, when Carlos Menem occupied the presidency of the country.

Thus Argentina starts at first to give top priority to its relations with the United States of America, seeing these relations as a conditio sine qua non to gain economical stability. MERCOSUL was, at the very beginning, a "complement" to the so called "carnal relationship" with the Northern partner. However this relationship acquired, throughout the years, the triangular aspect of a relationship amongst Argentina, Brazil and the United States of America.

Under the initial perspective of the peripherical realism, theory created by Argentinean political scientist Carlos Escudé, this paper aims to give a contribution in the field of the International Relations, especially in what concerns to the analysis of the changes suffered in the external policy of the countries as a whole