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This paper analyzes the development of cooperation between Argentina and Brazil from their initial rapprochement of 1979 to the construction of Mercosur in 1991. It presents an account of cooperation that emphasizes the power and organizational interests of the armed forces and that challenges the prevailing emphases on democratization and neoliberalism. In doing so, it addresses a methodological problem for qualitative research in international relations: What can be done if our theories of why cooperation occurs affect our perceptions of when it begins? Conventional explanations of Argentine-Brazilian cooperation may be biased toward what historian Herbert Butterfield called 'Whig history,' which sees in past events associations that exist only in the present. These tendencies can alter our periodization of cases, omit or falsely reject important causal variables, and too readily confirm our preferred hypotheses, but they can also be corrected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to emphasize the relevance of analyzing the exchanges between local and foreign counterparts. Latin American cultural history, cultural studies as well as architecture and urbanism histories contribute to discuss dependentists analyses on center--periphery relations. Those research lines enable a more productive approach on international circulation of ideas, technicians and urban models as well as international exchanges. The theoretical approach is articulated with a previous research that analyzes the struggle to define diagnoses of Buenos Aires city problems between 1983 and 1992. Those diagnosis are developed by various networks of local professional and technician, related in multiple ways with Spanish peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]