The Falklands/Malvinas as an Identity Dispute: A Constructivist Analysis of the British and Argentinian Positions

ABSTRACT

Why is the Falklands/Malvinas case so prominent in the Argentine political narrative? Why is it almost absent in Britain? How can Britain afford to ignore United Nations General Assembly Resolutions calling for negotiations without the risk of being ostracised by the international community? The key to understanding the dispute lies in looking beyond material factors and examining the ideas behind the actions of the two actors involved. The Falklands/Malvinas case can thus be better examined as an identity dispute; a constructivist analysis highlights how the impasse between Britain and Argentina is the result of their different perceptions of the history of the islands, the international legal principles that apply to the case and the role Britain plays in the world system. Such diverging perceptions, in turn, prevent the parties from settling the dispute.

KEYWORDS:

• Falkland Islands
• Islas Malvinas
• constructivism
• identity

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the journal for their valuable comments which helped to improve the paper.

Notes

1 The terms ‘South Atlantic War’ and ‘Falklands/Malvinas War’ are used interchangeably to refer to the 1982 armed conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

2 As Tony Ingesson (2009, 15) notes, in a bipolar international system, a country planning a war must take into account the attitudes of the two superpowers. Indeed, in the face of the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas operation, Argentine military officials sought US neutrality. However, when President Ronald Reagan called his Argentine counterpart, General Leopoldo Galtieri, on the eve of the military operation, the latter failed to heed Reagan's warnings that the US could not support Argentina in a possible armed invasion of the islands (Clark 1982, 276-81)

3 Anthony Cary, the 5th Viscount Falkland (1656-94) was a treasurer of the Navy from 1681 to 1689. He sponsored the South Atlantic expedition led by John Strong which landed in the islands in 1690.

4 French explorers established their colony of Port St Luis on the East Falkland Island in 1764. However, in 1766, under a treaty between France and Spain, the French agreed to leave the South Atlantic and cede territory to the Spanish, who claimed the islands as their own. The Spanish took formal control of Port St Louis in 1767 and renamed the settlement Puerto Soledad.

5 Indigenismo was a socio-political and cultural movement that called for the inclusion of indigenous peoples in nation-building projects. It emerged in Latin America at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in Mexico and Peru.

6 An expression of the two countries' dichotomous approach to the sovereignty issue is the existence of competing publications presenting the British and Argentine interpretations, respectively. In 2008 and 2012, British authors Graham Pascoe and Peter Pepper published two online articles outlining Britain's rights to the islands. The response to these publications was a 300-plus page book by Marcelo Kohen and Facundo Rodríguez presenting the Argentine arguments. This, in turn, led to another publication by Pascoe and Pepper, issued in 2020 (Kohen and Rodríguez 2016; Pascoe and Pepper 2020).

7 Uti possidetis juris is a principle of customary international law which states that newly established sovereign states should retain their pre-independence borders.

Additional information

Funding

The publication was funded under the program “Excellence Initiative – Research University” at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

Notes on contributors

Magdalena Lisińska

Magdalena Lisińska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.