Capitalist geopolitics and Latin America’s long road to regionalism

ABSTRACT

This article situates the current (re)configuration of Latin American regionalism within the broader history of capitalist geopolitics. I argue that modern regionalism, in the post-war period and beyond, is better understood through a deeper historicization of geopolitical dynamics that shaped, and were shaped by, global capital accumulation. From the early regional imaginaries of post-independence Latin American leaders, to the emergence of ‘continental history’ marked by the rise of the continent-sized island in the United States, the origins of regional institutions forms a more longer lineage than is often thought. The article provides a class-relational analysis of the ISI period, the rise (and fall) of neoliberal discipline, and the resurgence of a new Latin American left in the early twenty-first century. Through the lens of capitalist geopolitics, I offer a potential critical-theory route towards understanding the current conjuncture, and what the future portents for Latin American regionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Geopolitics
• capitalism
• regionalism
• Latin America

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Laleh Khalili and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback. The usual disclaimers apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ‘turning point’ of intensive growth refers to the initial moment of a sustained rise in per capita output.

2 This timing also helps to account for the importation of Atlantic (British/US) farm technology into Argentina during its turning point (Pineda, 2018).

3 The Rio Pact of 1947 and the subsequent Bogotá summit of 1948 would culminate in the Organization of American States (OAS), which effectively embodied the institutional expression of US imperial domination within the region (van der Pijl, 2006, p. 180).

4 However, the recently elected left-wing president, Luis Arce, has proclaimed Bolivia’s intention to re-join the ALBA-TCP (ATB Digital, 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rowan Lubbock

Rowan Lubbock is Lecturer in International Relations and Development at Queen Mary, University of London. His research centres on the agrarian dynamics of international relations, particularly within Latin America, and he has previously published in Journal of International Relations and Development, New Political Economy, and Journal of Agrarian Change. He is currently writing a manuscript on the politics of food sovereignty within the regional organization of the ALBA-TCP and Venezuela, to be published with the University of Georgia Press.