Ecuador and the United States: Useful Strangers (review)

This book is part of a series on "The United States and the Americas," edited by Lester D. Langley and published by the University of Georgia Press. The series and this individual volume are welcome contributions to the intellectual examination of the inter-American relationship, especially because Latin America has earned so little serious attention from the United States government since September 11, 2001. It is heartening to see that Ecuador was included in the series. Often regarded as a "lesser" South American state compared to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru, Ecuador has sadly earned the reputation as the "least important Latin American nation," as author Ronn Pineo remarks in his introduction.

Useful Strangers is a sound reference volume for anyone interested in Ecuadoran politics and history. Indeed, it is as much a book about Ecuadoran political history as it is one about the relationship between the United States and the Andean nation. Events and trends in Quito and Guayaquil receive much more detailed analysis than those in Washington, DC. The author frequently veers from the hegemon-client state relationship to delve into particulars of Ecuador's peculiar political-economic social affairs. Given the widespread availability of scholarship on U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, this is not a serious problem. The book's title however, does fail to capture fully the volume's analytical focus. This is not to say that Pineo does not treat the U.S.-Ecuador relationship comprehensively, only that he does so with greater attention to the Ecuadoran side of the equation.

Pineo's training as a historian shows in the fluid narrative that takes the reader from Ecuador as a colony up to its present-day status as a fully independent, if troubled, state. The historical overview is pitched at a level that allows the reader to appreciate the key events and trends that shaped Ecuador's development within the hemisphere, but does not overwhelm with particulars beyond those that truly demarcate crucial turns in Ecuador's history. Key historical figures such as Presidents Eloy Alfaro and José María Velasco Ibarra receive their due credit, as do the origins and progress of the banana and petroleum industries. Readers get a full account of the Ecuador-Peru border dispute that dominated much of Ecuador's diplomacy in the twentieth century.

Perhaps because this reviewer is a political scientist whose own work on Ecuador focuses on the period since the 1980s, she hopes for greater precision in much of the U.S.-Ecuador material in the recent period. For example, Pineo explains well the overpowering influence the United States exercised over Ecuador and its neighbors during the so-called "lost decade" in the 1980s when most Latin American nations found themselves in virtual receivership. Yet the analysis is as much about general trends in U.S.-Latin American patterns in lending and IMF-induced austerity programs as it is about the specifics of Washington's behavior towards Quito. Similarly, one wishes for greater detail on the role of international oil companies (many of them North American) in the exploitation of Ecuador's most valuable resource and its function as both a blessing and a curse in Ecuadoran development.

This volume's most important role is as a reference book. Every major event, theme, and character in Ecuador's history as a modern nation is here. The book well portrays the arc of Ecuador's social, political, and economic development, especially within the context of U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. This is an excellent starting point for anyone seeking a comprehensive grasp of Ecuador's history and present, including the sometimes circus-like behavior of politicians in both the presidential palace and the legislative body. When one's president is domestically and internationally known as "El Loco," as was the elected-and-then-ousted Abdalá Bucaram, a serious examination of the country's broader themes is merited. Useful...