From Imagined Community to Security Zone to International Empire. The Many Lives of the Monroe Doctrine

The bi-centennial history of the Monroe Doctrine is a history of adaptations, transformations, and ap-propriations. The first part of the essay discusses three major turning points. The text of 1823 envisioned the Western Hemisphere as an “imagined community” of American republics based on a shared, if somewhat elusive, identity, while the 1904 corollary transformed it in a US-enforced security system. Finally, its deployment within the inter-American system along the 20th century led to creation of a US-led “international empire”. The second part discusses the Second International Conference of the American States (1901-1902), an often-overlooked episode in the history of the inter-American system that in fact paved the way for international empire as the type of imperial formation operating in the Western hemisphere across the 20th century