Globalization and Military Power in the Andes

The Andean region has been, and continues to be, at the center of a struggle over embracing economic globalization and market democracies or eschewing such models for various nationalist/socialist strategies of development and politics. The regions' militaries have not been outside of this struggle, with factions in Venezuela or Ecuador working to frustrate the establishment and/or maintenance of neoliberal regimes, while militaries in Colombia, Peru, and to an extent in Bolivia, playing crucial roles in weakening or eliminating substantive challenges to capitalist globalization.  William Avilés explores this variation in military power, identifying how neoliberal economic and political elites and international actors such as the United States have sought to marginalize “radical populists” while seeking the subordination of militaries to the decision-making of neoliberal elites within Andean states.