LATIN AMERICA - A GEOPOLITICAL GUIDE

(2 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Latin American continent is a cauldron of diverse cultures, rich in natural resources, and an ecosystem full of opportunities for business minds and innovators. On the other hand, it also includes some of the most unequal and violent societies in the world. The region suffers from historical inequalities and development challenges impacting the way people engage with one another, do politics, and negotiate. By highlighting key thematic issues prevailing in contemporary Latin American affairs, this course aims to provide students with the analytical lenses to understand the unique context-specific opportunities and challenges faced with when establishing economic or political relationships in the region. The remote roots of current predicaments, like the destruction of most of its original population and the transference of millions of enslaved Africans to the region by Europeans, as well as the insertion of the regional economy into the Western economic system, will be analyzed as fundamentals to understand Latin America. The course will also explore, more specifically, geopolitical tensions in the strict sense of the word. In January 2023, for instance, Venezuela¿s president Nicolás Maduro affirmed, publicly, that his country, Brazil, and Argentina should organize a geopolitical bloc linked to China and Russia. He mentioned the names of Xi Jinpiang and Vladimir Putin as ¿our older brothers¿. Moreover, the widespread political polarization must be understood by those intending to work or invest in LatAm. As tensions between the new ¿eurasian¿ geopolitical bloc and the ¿West¿ rise, it is to be expected that Western investors will turn once again to Latin America as a relatively safe haven. Latin America is one of the main targets of international direct investment, and home of choice of many entrepreneurs. But will it live up to such expectations, or the next decade will watch geopolitical turmoil also here, a product of internal and external pressures? After this course, students will be able to comprehend more aptly the pros and cons of investing, living, and working in this region of natural beauty and devastation and of human ingenuity and inequalities.