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COURSE SYLLABUS
IRGN 490/Spring 2014
LATIN AMERICA IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
Instructor: Peter H. Smith
This course will explore Latin America’s changing position in the contemporary world arena.
How have countries of the region (or groups of countries) responded to shifting balances of
global power? Have they managed to take advantage of changing contexts? What results have
they achieved?
Our first discussion will examine alternative conceptions of the international distribution of
power. Subsequent sessions will focus on reciprocal economic and political relationships
between selected nations--Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela--and extra-hemispheric power
centers (China, Russia, Europe, and Iran). The final session will deal with international
organizations and the choice of institutional arenas.
There is no single text for this course. The reading list draws from many sources, among them
Gian Luca Gardini and Peter Lambert, Latin American Foreign Policies: Between Ideology and
Pragmatism (2011), hereinafter Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies; and Latin America and
the Shifting Sands of Global Power, a special issue of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American
Research (2013), hereinafter Shifting Sands. We also have an outstanding roster of guest
speakers.
Requirements
Students will be required to submit two policy memos (or short research papers) of 8-to-10 pages
each. The first will be due on Thursday, May 8; the second is due on June 5.
All students must read “required” assignments prior to every class. They must also join study
groups on weekly topics and analyze prevailing literature through “pro-and-con” debates on
specific issues; for this they should digest “suggested” materials as well as other sources they
might uncover on their own.
Grades will be based on the policy memos, debate performances, and participation in classroom
discussion.
A working command of Spanish or Portuguese would be helpful but is not required.
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COURSE SCHEDULE
INTRODUCTION
Apr 03: Queries and Concepts
Required:
Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, introduction and ch. 1
http://roger.ucsd.edu:80/record=b8159959~S9
Peter H. Smith, “Global Scenarios and Bilateral Priorities” in Peter H. Smith and Andrew Selee,
eds., Mexico and the United States: The Politics of Partnership (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2013),
ch. 2
Suggested:
Thomas E. Skidmore, Peter H. Smith, and James L. Green, Modern Latin America 8th edition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), chs. 15-16 (“Latin America in the World Arena”)
Apr 10: Sizing Up the Neighborhood
Guest Speaker: David Mares (UCSD)
Required:
Mares, “Intra-Latin American Relations: The Challenge of Promoting Cooperation While
Defending Sovereignty”
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ucsd/docDetail.action?docID=10672616&page=377 [access may be
limited to one user at a time]
Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Latin America, the United States, and the World, 4th edition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), chs. 9-12
Suggested:
Thomas Legler, “The Rise and Decline of the Summits of the Americas,” Shifting Sands, 179193
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjil20/19/2#.Uy8crpSaSfu
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LATIN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICIES
Apr 17: Brazil--An Emerging Giant?
Guest Speaker: Riordan Roett (SAIS/Johns Hopkins)
Required:
Albert Fishlow, Starting Over: Brazil since 1985 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2011)
http://roger.ucsd.edu:80/record=b7168560~S9
Larry Rohter, Brazil on the Rise (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2010), ch. 9
Andrés Malamud, “A Leader without Followers? The Growing Divergence between the
Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy,” Latin American Politics and
Society 2011 (53, 3): 1–24
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2011.00123.x/pdf
Suggested:
Brazil as an Economic Superpower? Understanding Brazil’s Changing Role in the Global
Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2009)
Sean Burges, “Mistaking Brazil for a Middle Power,” Shifting Sands, 286-302
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjil20/19/2#.Uy8crpSaSfu
Tullo Vigevani and Marcelo Fernandes de Oliveira, “Brazilian Foreign Policy in the Cardoso
Era: The Search for Autonomy through Integration,” Latin American Perspectives 2007 (34, 5):
58–80.
http://lap.sagepub.com/content/34/5/58.full.pdf
April 24: Venezuela--After Chávez, What?
Guest Speaker: Javier Corrales (Amherst College)
Required:
Javier Corrales and Michael Penrose, Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political
Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2011)
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Javier Corrales, “Using Social Power to Balance Soft Power: Venezuela’s Foreign Policy,” The
Washington Quarterly 2009 (32, 4): 97–114
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01636600903232285
Diana Raby, “Venezuelan Foreign Policy under Chávez, 1999-2010: The Pragmatic Success of
Revolutionary Ideology?” in Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, ch. 9
Suggested:
Ralph S. Clem and Anthony P. Maingot, eds., Venezuela’s Petro-Diplomacy: Hugo Chávez’s
Foreign Policy (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011)
https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780813048130
Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández, ed., Democracy, Revolution and Geopolitics in Latin
America: Venezuela and the International Politics of Discontent (New York: Routledge, 2013)
May 01: Mexico--Jockeying for Position
Guest Speaker: Rafael Fernández de Castro (ITAM)
Required:
Ana Covarrubias, “Mexico’s Foreign Policy under the Partido Acción Nacional: Promoting
Democracy, Human Rights, and Interests,” in Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, ch. 12
Lorenzo Meyer, “La desvanecida ruta de la ambición nacional: La tensión histórica entre el
proyecto nacional mexicano y su entorno internacional,” in Blanca Torres and Gustavo Vega,
eds., Relaciones internacionales (México: El Colegio de México, 2010)
http://roger.ucsd.edu:80/record=b6983951~S9 [Volume 12 of this set]
Suggested:
Smith and Selee, eds., Mexico and the United States: The Politics of Partnership (Boulder:
Lynne Rienner, 2013)
Ana Covarrubias, “Cuba and Haiti in Mexico’s Foreign Policy,” International Journal 2006 (61,
3): 661–76
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40204196
Humberto Garza Elizondo, Jorge A. Schiavon, and Rafael Velázquez Flores, ed. Paradigmas y
paradojas de la política exterior de México: 2000-2006 (México: El Colegio de México, 2010)
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Alexandra Délano, “From Limited to Active Engagement: Mexico’s Emigration Policies from a
Foreign Policy Perspective (2000–2006),” International Migration Review 2009 (43, 4): 764–
814
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2009.00784.x
May 8: Cuba—What Now?
Guest Speaker: H. Michael Erisman (Indiana State University)
Required:
Catherine Krull, ed., Cuba in a Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism, and
Transnationalism (2014)
http://roger.ucsd.edu:80/record=b8129784~S9 [access may be limited to one user at a time]
Antoni Kapcia, “Defying Expectations: The External Profile and Activism of the Cuban
Revolution,” in Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, ch. 10
Richard Feinberg, “Reaching Out: Cuba’s New Economy and the International Response” (2011)
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/11/18-cuba-feinberg
Zoila González Maicas, “Cuban Foreign Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Megatrend
Review 2013 (10, 2): 5–14
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=89498133&site=ehost-live
Suggested:
H. Michael Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World (Gainesville: University
Press of Florida, 2000)
H. Michael Erisman and John M. Kirk, eds. Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Impact of the
“Special Period” (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006)
MAJOR POWER CENTERS
May 15: The European Union
Required:
Lorena Ruano, ed., The Europeanization of National Foreign Policies towards Latin America
(2013)
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http://roger.ucsd.edu:80/record=b7674113~S9 [access may be limited to one user at a time]
Josep Borrell, “Europa, América Latina, y la regionalización del mundo,” Universidad de Alcalá
de Henares (2013)
http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/handle/10017/19845
Suggested:
Wolf Grabendorff and Reimund Seidelmann, eds., Relations between the European Union and
Latin America (2005)
Marcela Szymanski and Michael E. Smith, “Coherence and Conditionality in European Foreign
Policy: Negotiating the EU–Mexico Global Agreement,” Journal of Common Market Studies
2005 (43, 1): 171–92
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0021-9886.2005.00551.x
Enriqueta Serrano Caballero, Pasado, presente y futuro de la cooperación de la Unión Europea
hacia México (2000-2006). (San Luis Potosí: El Colegio de San Luis, 2008)
May 22: What Does China Really Want?
Guest Speaker: Richard Feinberg (IR/PS)
Required:
Jorge I. Dominguez, “China’s Relations with Latin America: Shared Gains, Asymmetric Hopes”
http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/china.pdf
Kevin P. Gallagher, “Capitalizing on the China Cycle: Time is Running Out for Latin America”
http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/ChinaGallagherPaper_PrintWeb.pdf
R. Evan Ellis, “The United States, Latin America and China: A ‘Triangular Relationship’”?
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_120810_Triangle_rpt.pdf
Richard Feinberg, “China, Latin America, and the United States: Congruent Interests or Tectonic
Turbulence?” Latin American Research Review 2011 (46, 2): 215–24
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/latin_american_research_review/summary/v046/46.2.feinberg.html
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Suggested:
Frank O. Mora, “Sino-Latin American Relations: Sources and Consequences, 1977–1997,”
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 1999 (41, 2): 91–116
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.1999.tb00095.x/pdf
Riordan Roett and Guadalupe Paz, eds., China’s Expansion into the Western Hemisphere:
Implications for Latin America and the United States (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,
2008)
Robert Evan Ellis, China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores (Boulder, Colorado:
Lynne Rienner, 2009)
China’s and India’s Challenge to Latin America: Opportunity or Threat? (Washington, DC: The
World Bank, 2009)
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/2591
Cesar Ross, “Japanese Foreign Policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean: Between
Cooperation and Business,” Atenea 2012 (505): 185–217.
http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/atenea/n505/art_09.pdf
Peter H. Smith, Kotaro Horisaka and Shoji Nishijima, eds., East Asia and Latin America: The
Unlikely Alliance (Boulder: Westview, 2003)
May 29: Rogues and Other Contenders
Required:
Mark Katz, “The Putin-Chávez Partnership,” Problems of Post-Communism 2006 (53, 4): 3–9
http://digilib.gmu.edu/jspui/bitstream/1920/3022/1/Putin%20Chavez%20POPC%20article.pdf
Cynthia Arnson ed., Iran in Latin America: Threat or “Axis of Annoyance”? (Washington DC:
Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010)
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/iran-latin-america-threat-or-axis-annoyance
Michael Dodson and Manochehr Dorraj, “Populism and Foreign Policy in Venezuela and Iran,”
Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 2008 (9, 71)
http://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/files/archives/08%20Dodson.pdf
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Suggested:
Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Redefines Itself and Its Relations with the West,” Washington Quarterly
2007 (30, 2): 95–105
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/washington_quarterly/v030/30.2trenin.html
Andrés Malamud, “Argentine Foreign Policy under the Kirchners: Ideological, Pragmatic, or
Simply Peronist?” in Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, ch. 5
Roberto Russell and Juan Gabriel Tokotlian, “Implications of the Global and Regional Changes
for Argentina’s Foreign Relations,” Shifting Sands, 251-267
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjil20/19/2#.Uy8crpSaSfu
June 05: International Organizations—UN, WTO, OAS
Required:
Gardini and Lambert, Foreign Policies, ch. 13
Arturo C. Sotomayor Velázquez, “Different Paths and Divergent Policies in the UN Security
System: Brazil and Mexico in Comparative Perspective,” International Peacekeeping 2009 (16,
3): 364–78
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13533310903036418
Patricia Grey Rich, ed., Latin America: Its Future in the Global Economy (New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002), chs. 1-2 and 9
Arturo C. Sotomayor Velázquez and Gustavo Vega Cánovas, El mundo desde México: Ensayos
de política internacional (México: El Colegio de México, 2008), tercera parte (“México en la
ONU”)
Mónica Herz, The Organization of American States: Global Governance Away from the Media
(2011), selected chapters