Pax britannica. The debate over 19th century Informal Imperialism in Latin America

The article retraces, up to the present day, the historiographical debate over the concept of «informal imperialism» launched in England by Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher with their 1953 article The Imperialism of Free Trade. It refers chiefly to that part of it focusing on an influence, here defined as «structuring», of Britain on Latin America after independence. It offers a less vague, less traditional and more circumscribed interpretation of informal imperialism, useful in identifying a particular degree of imperialism: that of imperial construction within a framework of unofficial policy.