This book arises out of the work of the Study Group on Latin America organized by Professor Peter Calvert as part of the Southampton Project on North–South Security Relations, funded by the Ford Foundation. The basic focus of this section of the project is on the concept of security in Central America and the Caribbean and perceptions by states in the region of the rival claims of political independence, economic well-being, national security and regional stability. The Study Group, holding sessions which ran from September 1985 to the summer of 1986, brought together some of the leading academic specialists on the area in the United Kingdom, together with participants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and outside financial and research organizations.

This book contains articles specially commissioned from some of the participants on selected features of the Central American and Caribbean problem. Among so many highly qualified participants the only criterion of choice could be the subject area and its relevance to the other contributions. A United States input was additionally provided by Professor Martin C. Needler of the University of New Mexico, formerly visiting Professor in Politics at the University of Southampton.

The project, we believe, differs from earlier ventures in being tightly focused on crisis-prevention regimes and crisis-control techniques. The Central American/Caribbean region has in the early 1980s been uniquely interesting for the range of illustrations which it offers of such regimes and techniques.