Conference Program

Actors within the international system possessing great power can influence the foreign policy of others, employing either coercive measures or cooperative strategies; the renowned stick or carrot approach. Throughout history, Mexico has found itself subordinated to the interests of the most influential actor in the region: the United States. For over two centuries, the Western Hemisphere has operated under U.S. Hegemony, with Latin American politics falling under the scope of Washington’s foreign policy.

However, a new actor has gained prominence in the hemisphere, the People’s Republic of China. Beijing's emergence in the Southern Cone has displaced the American presence, particularly in economic and commercial affairs and significant Foreign Direct Investments toward projects such as energy, infrastructure, and agriculture, while the U.S. maintains an overwhelming military influence on the continent. This paper aims to explore the impact of the Great Power Competition dynamic between these two actors, also referred to as Sino-American strategic competition, on the decision-making process in Mexican foreign policy.

The Chinese presence in the region is perceived as a threat by policymakers in Washington. Nevertheless, Mexico has adopted a friendly approach towards Beijing and has been able to manage the interaction with both powers without confrontation. The ability to navigate the rivalry between these two great powers indicates the pragmatism inherent in Mexican foreign policy. Despite this, there is a clear inclination towards favoring the country’s top trading partner, linked with a deep understanding of Washington’s strategic concerns toward China.

In recent decades, Peruvian foreign policy has been understood mainly as pragmatic. However, starting from a theoretical approach necessary to understand the debate between pragmatism, ideology and dogmatism in Foreign Policy, it is our objective to demonstrate that neoliberalism -an ideological framework that has been present in Peruvian political dynamics from the 1990s to the present-, was initially an unquestionable expression of a pragmatic foreign policy; however, over the years it could also be considered as an expression of a certain degree of dogmatism. Thus, neoliberalism, which has had a great influence on Peruvian foreign policy in recent decades, seems to coexist between pragmatism and dogmatism, making the analysis much more complex.

The bilateral ties between Peru and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are considered to be strong. Apart from being the second recipient of Chinese FDI in LAC and having signed one of the few FTA as a Latin American economy with China, since 2013, Peru and China maintain a relationship marked as “comprehensive strategic partnership”. Nevertheless, and despite lIima's enthusiasm with the Belt and Road Initiative early on, both the signing of a MoU between the PRC and Peru regarding the BRI, and Peru’s accession to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) -a financial institution linked to the BRI- suffered several delays.

This paper aims to show that the relatively late participation of Peru in the BRI and the AIIB was due to internal divisions and the country's recent policial instabilty, as well as a geopolitical anxiety in Lima, caused by the increasing strategic competition between Beijing and Washington.

This study focuses on the discursive construction of U.S. foreign policy towards Venezuela after the elections of leftist presidents in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez in 1998 and Nicolás Maduro in 2013. It analyzes the official discourses (statements, speeches, interviews, memoirs) of U.S. Presidents like George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, and Donald J. Trump and their foreign policymakers concerning Venezuela to elaborate the three key ‘representations of identity’ within these texts (2008, 2015, and 2019). This study is not about U.S. foreign policy actions toward Venezuela. On the contrary, this study's main objective is the constitution of a particular reality through foreign relations, discourses of danger, and identity formation through difference. Therefore, the constitution of the Chávez and Maduro administrations as dangerous others by the U.S. foreign policy discourses was necessary to reproduce the American identity. Linking danger to American identity has been a pivotal part of its constitution since portraying danger through foreign policy helps secure its national identity's limits. Within this framework, it is possible to view the constitution of the Chávez and Maduro administrations as dangerous Others in a new light, as another instance of the continuous production and reproduction of American identity through foreign policy actions rather than solely as a crisis caused by external factors. Furthermore, in order to establish American identity, it was crucial for exclusionary practices to convincingly connect dissenting elements to a secure identity on the "inside" by employing a narrative of danger, where the identified threats were attributed to the "outside".