Organization of American States (OAS)

As the centerpiece of the inter-American system, the Organization of American States (OAS) is the oldest and most elaborate regional governance system in the world. Over the decades, the reputation and effectiveness of the OAS have oscillated as a result of the shifting global environment and the degrees of cooperation or tension between the dominant nation in the region—the United States—and the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The weaker countries, fearful of the gaping asymmetries of power and of U.S. intervention in their internal affairs, sometimes have sought to employ the OAS to constrain or balance against the United States, whereas at other times they have preferred cooperation with the United States in areas of mutual interest. During the Cold War, the United States sought to use the OAS to advance its global strategic objectives, but in recent decades the OAS agenda has broadened to include regional economic cooperation, anticorruption, and counternarcotics, and, most importantly, the promotion and protection of representative democracy in member-states. In the 21st century, a renewed ideological fragmentation among member-states and the emergence of ambitious regional powers pose challenges to the historical functions of the region's premier political institution.

The vision of inter-American cooperation can be traced back to Simón Bolívar and his convocation in 1826 of the Congress of Panama. Regional cooperation schemes—sometimes including and sometimes exempting the United States—have found their justifications in contiguous geography, cultural commonalities, economic exchange, social interconnectedness, and, at times, shared enemies. The more contemporary inter-American system began to take shape in 1889–1890 when the United States convened in Washington, D.C., the First International Conference of American States, which morphed into the Pan American Union. The modern OAS, as codified in the Charter of Bogota and housed in the Pan American Union building, dates from 1948, illustrative of a global trend following the end of World War II to build multilateral institutions that could help to maintain regional peace and security, resolve disputes among member-states, and, with the outbreak of the Cold War, contain the power of the Soviet Union.

In the 1960s and at the height of the Cold War, the United States turned to the OAS to suspend Cuba from active membership following the seize of power by Fidel Castro, and to endorse the U.S. military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 to forestall a possible victory by leftist forces. The OAS also played a role in implementing the Alliance for Progress, the U.S.-funded foreign assistance program intended to promote social progress and noncommunist governments in the Americas.