U.S. Latin American Relations

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Globalization has had both integrative and disintegrative consequences for the US and the Americas. On the one hand it has led to increased economic integration and interdependence, leading to regional and hemispheric processes of political and economic integration. Democracy, free markets and trade have made great strides in the past decade or two. But globalization has also had less positive consequences, challenging state capacity, enabling international criminality, and spreading greater economic insecurity. Globalization also threatens traditional collective cultural identities. This course explores the impact globalization has had on US-Latin American relations. Among its objectives are to review the motor forces of globalization, to examine the evolving pattern of interaction between the United States and countries in the Western Hemisphere, to explore the impact of hemispheric integration and trade, and to assess the challenges that globalization poses in the areas of corruption, governance, and human rights as well as transnational crime and immigration. This course is taught in Spanish and is also listed as GOVT-451.