International dimenssion of the security System: The colective defense in South America.

• In Event: Security and Defense Issues in UNASUR 1

Abstract

The security System Reform's process in countries of South America has been the first step to deeper the democratization after the authoritarian governments with the instalation of the need of the institutional boundaries for the militar power and its authonomy. But, the last 30 years, not only in the internal structure of security and defense we can see this need; in the international level these countries have done a great road in where the building of the collective idea of the security could have an incipient evolution if the different internal projects of defense are thinking with a alignment with the regional interest to cooperate in the construction of the regional security.
The countries members of the Consejo de Defensa Suramericano are faced with own problems and external demands; a heterogeneous institutional development; the duty of to drive the institutional changes; to install the own agenda and be part of the global agenda defined by the council. The relationship between countries members, more direct than a bilateral relation but more exigent than this, requires more commitment and alignment from the executive power in the local policy process; more information and an instance in where the members of the council could develop the confidence necessary to coordinated work.

In this paper, I will describe how Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay have worked into the first level of the collective defense with the Consejo Suramericano de Defensa, what mean this inside the countries and how the institutional development in spite of the high level of institutional inequality between countries and inside of the governmental structure; the Council link the regional needs and the internal ones and how the international level of the security and defense policy define the local level like a fourth dimension to consider in the policy making process.

Author

• Natalia Vargas Palacios, Universidad de Chile