31705 - International Relations of Latin America

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to provide a map of Latin American geopolitics, with particular attention to the history of relations between the United States and Latin America. At the end of the course the student will be able to understand and interpret the international Latin American system and its interaction with the hemispheric and the global one.

Course contents

The course is organized with a part of lectures taught online on MS TEAMS and another taught in presence. The number of students allowed in class is determined on the basis of class capacity and by the health and safety provisions that deal with the pandemic emergency. In case more students want to attend classes in presence than permitted by the rules, a system of shifts will be organized so to allow students to participate. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

The course will study the inter-American relationships embracing the entire period of time between the independence of the Latin American states from Spain and Portugal and the present day. From the Monroe doctrine, therefore, to the war between the United States and Mexico and the Hispano-American one for Cuba, to continue with the age of the Big Stick and the Dollar Diplomacy, the Good Neighbor, the consolidation of the inter-American system after World War II, the relations between the United States and Latin America during the administrations Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. and after the end of the Cold War. Particular attention will be placed on the dimension of intra-American relations, that is on the history of relations between the nation-states of Latin America.

Readings/Bibliography

Readings / Bibliography

 

Peter H. Smith, Talons of the eagle: dynamics of U.S.-Latin American relations, - Oxford: Oxford university press, 2012 (and all subsequent editions)

Preliminary text for those who have never attended Latin American History courses:

L.Zanatta, Storia dell'America Latina contemporanea, Laterza, Rome-Bari (New Edition updated), 2017

Students will also have to study two monographs chosen from the following (possible alternative texts can be agreed with the teacher):

Brands Hal, Latin America's Cold War, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Domínguez Jorge and Fernández de Castro Rafael, [editors], Contemporary U.S.-Latin American relations: cooperation or conflict in the 21st century? New York: Routledge, 2010.

Fornes Gaston and Alan Butt Philip, The China-Latin America axis: emerging markets and the future of globalization, Palgrave 2012.

Gardini, Gian Luca, The Origins of Mercosur: Democracy and Regionalization in South America, Pallgrave - Macmillan 2010.

Iber, Patrick, Neither peace nor freedom: the cultural Cold War in Latin America, Cambridge; London: Harvard University press, 2015

Mori, A., Zanatta L., Latin America at a crossroads, ispi 2017.

Poggio Teixeira, Carlos Gustavo, Brazil, the United States, and the South American subsystem: regional politics and the absent empire, Lexington Books, 2012.

Reid Michael, Brazil: the troubled rise of a global power, New Haven; London: Yale university press, 2014

Zanatta, Loris, I sogni imperiali di Peron, Libreria Universitaria, Padova 2016.

Zanatta Loris, Il Populismo Gesuita, Laterza, Roma 2020

Teaching methods

The course will be held in accordance with the health conditions and the safety protocols in force will allow

Assessment methods

The final exam will consist of a normal oral interview.

Teaching tools

No one

Office hours

See the website of Loris Zanatta