POL 3450 International Relations in Latin America

This course will review the International Relations in Latin America, highlighting the most important facts that mark the politics in the region for the current era, specifically analyze tensions between sovereign rule and foreign hegemony, first by Spain and Portugal, later with Great Britain and other European colonial powers, and currently with the United States.
An elementary introduction to class struggle and oligarchical domination, the rise and fall of Imperialism, military interventions, corporate banking, the role of national and foreign investments. Examples of diverse phases of economic systems, conservative ethnic and cultural resistance to change, as well as totalitarian, liberal and socialist revolutionary change.

Human settlements in the Western Hemisphere, Pre-Columbian Tribal and Imperial societies, formation of modern Nation-States, and the complex International World Organizations, up to contemporary Power Structures, New World Orders and regional the emergence of new strategic players such as BRICS, G-20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Group (Silk Road Project).

The Cold War, current events, the military dictatorships, and other Latin American political phenomena, such as integration, migration, and their effects of the war on drugs, terror and US hemispheric and global politics.

Finally, with an evaluation of popularity and ideological tendencies of governments in the Region, present day relations with China and Russia, and the influence of globalization in the world, will be reflected in a final essay on a specific subject or case study from each student.