Political Science, International Studies and Latin American(ist) Geopolitics: Critical Diagnosis of a Non-Existing Dialogue
Main Article Content
Abstract
Latin American(ist) Political Science has experienced in recent years a shift in its research agenda. At the end of the 20th century, it thematically orbited around democratization, the subsequent acquisition of “institutional quality” by the region's new democracies, and the impact of both processes on the formulation of public policies. The study of foreign, defense and security policies was affected by these great theoretical and analytical tendencies of the discipline, which also exerted a considerable influence in international studies. However, in the 21st century, political studies were oriented towards problems related to statehood and territoriality: federalism, multilevel governance, nationalization/regionalization of governments, and “sub-national politics”. Slowly but surely, Political Science began to deal with questions that are the province of political geography, albeit with its back to it. This article argues that there is a fundamental problem in this geographical turn: the scant knowledge that political scientists and internationalists have about geopolitics and its main findings.
Downloads
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Urvio, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios de Seguridad, operates under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Work 3.0 unported (CC BY-ND 3.0).
The authors who publish in Urvio accept these terms:
You are free to share / copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, including commercial. Therefore, authors retain the copyright and cede to the journal the right of the first publication (CC by-ND 3.0), which allows third parties the redistribution, commercial or noncommercial, of what is published as long as the article circulates without changes.
The following conditions exist for the authors:
Recognition - you must recognize the authorship, provide a link to the license and indicate whether changes have been made. You can do this in any way reasonable, but not in a way that suggest that has the support of the licensor or receives it by the use he makes.
Without Derivative Work – If you remixed, transform or create a work from the original material, you cannot broadcast the modified material.
For more details, visit the page of Creative Commons (CC).
References
Abal, Juan. 2011. La política partidaria en Argentina ¿Hacia la desnacionalización del sistema de partidos? Buenos Aires: Prometeo.
Agnew, John. 2005. Geopolítica: una re-visión de la política mundial. Madrid: Temas.
Barrios, Miguel. 2014. “La geopolítica sudamericana del siglo XXI”. En Geopolítica y estrategia suramericana. Perspectivas académicas, 54-69. Sangolquí: ESPE.
Bartolomé, Mariano. 2013. “Una visión de América Latina desde la perspectiva de la agenda de la seguridad internacional contemporánea”. Relaciones Internacionales 2: 35-64.
Barton, Jonathan. 1997. A Political Geography of Latin America. Nueva York: Routledge.
Benítez, Raúl. 2021. “México 2018-2021: pandemia, crisis, seguridad y geopolítica”. Revista UNISCI 56: 9-32.
Cabrera, Lester. 2019. “Una discusión disciplinaria y epistemológica de la geopolítica y su aplicación al caso suramericano”. Cinta de Moebio. Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales 66: 366-379.
Cabrera, Lester. 2020. “Geopolítica crítica: alcances, límites y aportes para los estudios internacionales en Sudamérica”. Foro Internacional 239: 61-95.
Calvento, Mariana, y María Rolandi. 2015. “Reconfiguración de la Cooperación Sur-Sur en la región latinoamericana y la participación internacional de los actores subnacionales”. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 60 (224): 315-348.
Calvo, Ernesto, y Marcelo Leiras. 2012. “The Nationalization of Legislative Collaboration: Territory, Partisanship, and Policymaking in Argentina”. Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudios Legislativos 1 (2): 2-19.
Chenou, Jean-Marie, y Cintia Quiliconi 2020. “Estudios globales: contribuciones latinoamericanas en un mundo globalizado”. Colombia Internacional 102: 3-21.
Cienfuegos, Manuel, y José Sanahuja. 2010. Una región en construcción. UNASUR y la integración en América del Sur. Barcelona: CIDOB .
Cohen, Saul. 2015. Geopolitics. The Geography of International Relations. Nueva York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Dodds, Klaus. 2005. Global Geopolitics. A Critical Introduction. Londres: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Dosek, Tomás. 2015. “La nacionalización de los partidos y sistemas de partidos en América Latina. Concepto, medición y reciente desarrollo de su estudio en la región”. Política y Gobierno 22 (2): 347-390.
Eaton, Kent. 2008. “Federalism in Europe and Latin America: Conceptualization, causes, and consequences”. World Politics 60 (4): 665-698.
Falleti, Tulia. 2010. Decentralization and subnational politics in Latin America. Nueva York: Cambridge University Press.
Flint, Colin. 2006. Introduction to Geopolitics. Londres: Routledge.
Garavaglia, Juan. 2012. “Servir al Estado, servir al poder: la burocracia en el proceso de construcción estatal en América Latina”. Almanack 3: 5-26.
García, Viviana. 2015. “Territorios fronterizos: agenda de seguridad y narcotráfico en Chile: el Plan Frontera Norte”. Estudios internacionales 47 (181): 69-93.
Gardini, Luca. 2021. External powers in Latin America. Geopolitics between neo-extractivism and South-South cooperation. Londres: Routledge.
Gervasoni, Carlos. 2010. “A Rentier Theory of Subnational Regimes. Fiscal Federalism, Democracy, And Authoritarianism in The Argentine Provinces”. World Politics 62 (2): 302–340.
Gibson, Edward. 2004. Federalism and Democracy in Latin America. Washington DC: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gibson, Edward. 2012. Boundary Control. Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giraudy, Agustina. 2011. “La política territorial de la democracia subnacional”. Journal of Democracy en Español 3: 42-57.
Hepple, Leslie. 2004. “South American Heartland: The Charcas, Latin American Geopolitics and Global Strategies”. The Geographical Journal 170 (4): 359-367.
Kacowicz, Arie. 2008. “América Latina en el mundo: globalización, regionalización y fragmentación”. Nueva Sociedad 214: 112-123.
Kaplan, Robert. 2017. La venganza de la Geografía. Madrid: RBA Libros.
Kelly, Phil. 2016. Classical Geopolitics. A New Analytical Model. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Klare, Michael. 2008. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. Nueva York: Metropolitan Books.
Lodola, Germán. 2017. “Reclutamiento político subnacional. Composición social y carreras políticas de los gobernadores en Argentina”. Colombia Internacional 91: 85-116.
Malamud, Andrés, y Sören Scholvin. 2020. “Is Brazil a Geoeconomic Node? Geography, Public Policy, and the Failure of Economic Integration in South América”. Brazilian Political Science Review 14 (2). doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821202000020004
Manduca, Paulo. 2012. “La energía en la política sudamericana: características de las relaciones entre Brasil y Venezuela”. Revista mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 216 (57): 81-100.
Mazzuca, Sebastian. 2021. Latecomer State Formation. Political Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Milani, Carlos, y Tassia Carvalho. 2013. “Cooperação Sul-Sul e política externa: Brasil e China no continente africano”. Estudos Internacionais: Revista de Relações Internacionais 1 (1): 11-35.
Mingst, Karen. 2001. Essentials of International Relations. Nueva York: W. W. Norton.
Nogué, Joan, y Joan Ruffí. 2001. Geopolítica, Identidad y Globalización. Barcelona: Ariel.
Nunn, Frederick. 2011. Relaciones Militares Civiles Sudamericanas en el Siglo XXI. Sombras del pasado y formas de lo que vendrá. Santiago: ACAGUE.
O’Tuathail, Gearoid. 1996. Critical Geopolitics. The Politics of Writing Global Space. Londres: Routledge.
Oddone, Nahuel. 2016. “La paradiplomacia desde cinco perspectivas: reflexiones teóricas para la construcción de una comunidad epistémica en América Latina”. Relaciones Internacionales 89 (2): 47-82.
Riggirozzi, Pia, y Diana Tussie. 2012. The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism: The Case of Latin America. Londres: Springer.
Rivarola, Andrés. 2011. “‘Geopolitics of Integration’ and the Imagination of South America”. Geopolitics 16 (4): 846-864.
Rivarola, Andrés. 2013. “Geopolitics and Integration: A South American Perspective”. Resilence of Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean editado por Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano y José Briceño-Ruiz, 19-52. Londres: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rivera, Fredy. 2008. Seguridad multidimensional en América Latina. Quito: FLACSO.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1970. “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics”. The American Political Science Review 64 (4): 1033-1053.
Smith, Neil. 1987. “Academic War over the Field of Geography: The Elimination of Geography at Harvard, 1947-1951”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (2): 155-172.
Vigevani, Tullo. 2004. A dimensão subnacional e as relações internacionais. São Paulo: UNESP.
Wehner, Leslie, y Detlef Nolte. 2017. “Role Theory and Geopolitical Thinking in South America”. En Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America, editado por Marcial A.G. Suarez, Rafael Duarte Villa y Brigitte Weiffen, 101-120. Londres: Palgrave Macmillan.