Contestation and obstruction: Argentina and Brazil in the inter-American system (1933-1951)

Abstract

This article compares two moments in South American foreign policy to examine the limits of autonomy within the Inter-American system. Between 1933 and 1945, Argentina pursued active neutrality and challenged U.S. leadership, placing sovereignty at the center of its diplomacy. In the immediate postwar years, from 1946 to 1951, Brazil under Eurico Gaspar Dutra followed an almost automatic alignment with Washington while systematically obstructing Argentine initiatives for regional integration led by Juan Domingo Perón. The research adopts an inductive approach, combining primary and secondary sources to analyze how these two “no’s” were received by the inter-American system. The contrast between the cases reveals opposite outcomes: Argentine contestation was punished with isolation, although it reinforced internal cohesion, whereas Brazilian obstruction was rewarded with immediate prestige, without producing lasting material benefits and deepening structural dependence. The central contribution of this study is to demonstrate that the Inter-American system operated selectively, rewarding obstruction that reinforced its logic while punishing contestation that challenged it. By comparing these cases, the article highlights the dilemmas of Latin American autonomy in the twentieth century and explains why the region missed historical opportunities to develop its own integration projects. Moreover, it contributes to the comparative literature on Latin America by showing how strategies of contestation and diplomacy of obstruction shaped regional political trajectories and defined the possibilities of autonomy in the face of U.S. hegemony.