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10 1093@isr@viaa025
ANALYTICAL ESSAY
Q U I N T I J N B . K AT
University College London
Introduction
Hegemony is a two-way street. While relations between hegemonic and subordinate
states are highly asymmetrical, without the latter’s perception of benefits obtained
through the hegemonic order, hegemony will weaken or cease to be truly hege-
monic. This article furthers existing understandings of hegemony in International
Relations (IR) as based on consent and links this to subordinate-state agency. Build-
ing on works that demonstrate how agency equips subordinate states with strate-
gies for influencing the hegemon’s behavior, this work examines the effects of such
agency on the hegemonic order itself. In doing so, it makes a case for subordinate-
state agency as an underpinning element of hegemony and presents an analysis of
how subordinate states oppose or support hegemons, or “preeminent powers,” a
topic of research thus far underdeveloped and demanding of scholarly attention in
the currently commencing “third phase of interstate-hegemony studies” (Ikenberry
Kat, Quintijn B.. (2020) Subordinate-State Agency and US Hegemony: Colombian Consent versus Bolivian Dissent. International
Studies Review, doi: 10.1093/isr/viaa025
© The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
2 Subordinate-State Agency and US Hegemony
and Nexon 2019, 421). Here, it is posed that consenting states will apply agency to
uphold or even intensify hegemony, while dissenting states will actively challenge
powerful hegemon provides for stability within the open economic system and thus
benefits subordinate states within this system (Kindleberger 1973, 302). Krasner
in so-called hard or soft balancing. The former relates to the adoption of strategies
to improve military capabilities as well as the establishment and maintenance of
(Pardo 2000; Estrada Álvarez 2001b, 36; Sweig 2002, 129; Livingstone 2003, 185;
Crandall 2008, 124; Tokatlian 2008, 98; Livingstone 2009, 118; Tickner and Pardo
Colombian defense and security capabilities (including the explicit mention of the
need for helicopters and improved intelligence capabilities), and policies aimed at
Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Rand
Beers had a meeting with Tapias and Lloreda’s successor, Luis Fernando Ramírez,
The eventual document that came to be Plan Colombia was written by Pastrana
confidant Jaime Ruiz, who combined the Pastrana administration’s objectives as ar-
ticulated in the NDP with the only issue the United States really pressed Colombia
on, a strong counternarcotics element (Méndez 2017, 112). The fact that Ruiz wrote
the plan in English led to much speculation as to whether the plan may have been
written in Washington instead (Arnson and Tickner 2010, 172). Such speculation
was later convincingly refuted. Ruiz, a perfect English speaker who holds a degree
from a US university, wrote the plan in English to save time and speed up US govern-
mental approval (Marcella 2001, 7; Pastrana Arango and Gómez 2005, 204; Méndez
2017, 113).
Many scholars argue that the final plan represented a refocus on the military
component while moving away from the Pastrana government’s original socioeco-
nomic development emphasis (Vacius and Isacson 2000; Palacios 2012, 185). Evi-
dence of this shift, such works claim, can be found in the fact that roughly 75 per-
cent of US funding for Plan Colombia went to the CAF or the Colombian National
Police (García 2001; Ramírez 2001, 103; Williams and Jawahar 2003, 163; Dugas
2005, 241; Stokes 2005, 93; Tickner 2007a, 336; Dugas 2014, 153; Rosen 2014, 34).
This assertion is misguided for a number of reasons. First, there is a clear differ-
ence in the costs of military hardware and social development programs. Inevitably,
this will lead to a larger allocation of funds toward the acquisition of, for example,
Black Hawk helicopters, which cost millions of dollars each. The fifty-eight heli-
copters that Colombia received under the initial US$1.3 billion aid package from
10 Subordinate-State Agency and US Hegemony
Washington plus other expenses on military training and equipment would thus
logically tilt the balance financially toward military spending (Marcella 2003, 33).
1
That the Colombians had from the start planned to obtain funding for the military component of Plan Colombia
from the United States was also confirmed in an author’s interview with a senior Colombian official involved at the time
who wished to remain anonymous.
QUINTIJN B. KAT 11
was often at the end of Colombian complaints on the matter (Pastrana Arango and
Gómez 2005, 264; Patterson 2017).
opportunities and benefits emanating from hegemony, then it will bargain to se-
cure these and seek cooperation. In cases of consent, hegemony is supported. In
government, while small-scale farmers and the textile industry suffered from foreign
competition (Buxton 2008, 156; Klein 2011b, 51).
In one instance, UMOPAR and DEA agents were attacked by cocaleros in the town of
Villa Tunari ending with the UMOPAR opening fire on the crowd, killing five and
majority (Postero 2017, 29). Within this narrative, the coca leaf was cleverly linked
to Bolivian culture, turning the War on Drugs into an attack on Bolivia’s cultural
US-pursued Free Trade Area of the Americas. Economic assistance from Venezuela
to Bolivia soon increased, approaching US levels (Romero 2007, 3). This gave
prescriptions and demands, Morales dissented and openly and actively defied US
policy, took the initiative, and effectively pulled Bolivia out of the US hegemonic
about it. Apparently, the benefits of the ATPDEA did not outweigh the costs of the
Washington-prescribed drug war. The US lost a great deal of influence in Bolivia
Acknowledgments
The author would like to express his gratitude to Kevin Middlebrook, Sharmila
Ray, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of ISR for their helpful and
valuable comments. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2019
Latin American Studies Association International Congress and the 2019 British
International Studies Association Annual Conference.
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