This is a course about the international relations of Latin America. This course will focus on the challenges that have faced Latin America starting with its colonial legacy to the struggle for development, military meddling in civilian politics to its debilitating debt crisis and complex relations with the United States. The course will also look at the different strategies the various Latin American countries have adopted to both adapt and contest the forces of globalization.
Latin American countries, despite their unifying colonial starting point, have charted different courses for themselves. These courses range from Brazil, the behemoth, and contender for a global role to Venezuela, intent on using its oil money to contest US influence to Mexico which, after a hundred years after its revolution, may have finally made its peace with its northern neighbor. These do not represent the totality of the strategies out there. How do Paraguay or Ecuador or Peru and Colombia deal with rapid change?
