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The Normalization of U.S. Policy Toward Cuba? Rapprochement and Regional Hegemony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2020

Rubrick Biegon Open the ORCID record for Rubrick Biegon [Opens in a new window]
Rubrick Biegon*
Affiliation:
Rubrick Biegon is a lecturer in international relations in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent.
*
[email protected].
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Abstract

This article examines change and continuity in the United States' recent foreign policy toward Cuba. In the context of the posthegemonic regionalism of the Pink Tide and regional disputes over Cuba's position in the interamerican system, the Obama administration's rapprochement was driven to protect the institutional power and consensual features of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. The Trump administration reversed aspects of Obama's normalization policy, adopting a more coercive approach to Cuba and to Latin America more broadly. Against the emerging scholarly proposition that the international relations of the Americas have crossed a posthegemonic threshold, this analysis utilizes a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that the oscillations in U.S. Cuba policy represent strategic shifts in a broader process of hegemonic reconstitution. The article thus situates U.S. policy toward Cuba in regional structures, institutions, and dynamics.

Keywords

CubaU.S. foreign policyhegemonyregionalismObama administrationTrump administration
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 46 - 72
Copyright
© University of Miami 2020 

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