Power, Institutions, and Leadership in War and Peace

Lessons from Peru and Ecuador, 1995–1998

David R Mares author David Scott Palmer author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Texas Press

Published:1st Jun '12

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Power, Institutions, and Leadership in War and Peace cover

In January 1995, fighting broke out between Ecuadorian and Peruvian military forces in a remote section of the Amazon. It took more than three years and the interplay of multiple actors and factors to achieve a definitive peace agreement, thus ending what had been the region's oldest unresolved border dispute. This conflict and its resolution provide insights about other unresolved and/or disputed land and sea boundaries which involve almost every country in the Western Hemisphere.

Drawing on extensive field research at the time of the dispute and during its aftermath, including interviews with high-ranking diplomats and military officials, Power, Institutions, and Leadership in War and Peace is the first book-length study to relate this complex border dispute and its resolution to broader theories of conflict. The findings emphasize an emerging leadership approach in which individuals are not mere captives of power and institutions. In addition, the authors illuminate an overlap in national and international arenas in shaping effective articulation, perception, and selection of policy.

In the “new” democratic Latin America that emerged in the late 1970s through the early 1990s, historical memory remains influential in shaping the context of disputes, in spite of presumed U.S. post–Cold War influence. This study offers important, broader perspectives on a hemisphere still rife with boundary disputes as a rising number of people and products (including arms) pass through these borderlands.

The analysis of developments during the years 1995 to 1998 is especially masterful, artfully weaving together the many different strands. The book also benefits from the provision of some good maps and helpful chronologies…Mares and Palmer have undoubtedly written the most comprehensive work possible on the Ecuador Peru territorial settlement pending the future opening of the diplomatic archives of the key players. * International Affairs *

ISBN: 9780292754294

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 13mm

Weight: 227g

200 pages