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Latin American countries do not define their security agenda. In fact the regional presence of the United States conditions the security agendas of the countries in the region and their capacity to establish autonomous national policies on the global , regional and sub regional spheres. Nevertheless the regional integration process in the southern cone and the international role that Brazil has been signaling it would like to play since the transition to democracy have allowed the governments of Brazil and Argentina to define some strategic orientations. During the last fifteen years the civil authorities have established some defense and security policies in the absence of direct intervention on the part of the armed forces, in contrast to previous periods. In this paper we shall analyze the conceptual sources incorporated by the political elite in both Argentina and Brazil and the means and resources available for decision making in the security sphere in these countries . We shall investigate the process of securitization in the regional context taking into account the interaction between endogenous and exogenous variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]