2017, Jenne, Nicole, Schenoni, Luis, Urdinez, Francisco

The idea of an integrated Latin American region goes back to the early post-independence period, and yet, in substance, Latin American regionalism has remained far behind its stated aims. The perceived implementation gap has raised the question why policymakers continued to talk about something they appeared to avoid in practice. This article contributes to the debate on Latin America’s integration gap by exploring the phenomenon of declaratory regionalism - the practice of referring to the region and its institutions in political speeches. Based on quantitative text analysis of the speeches presidents delivered annually at the UN’s General Assembly between 1994 and 2014, we show that this practice has not been uniform. Presidents distinguish between different forms of regionalism, integration and cooperation, and frame the geographical region they refer to accordingly. In motivating presidents to speak about integration as opposed to cooperation, ideology and democratic performance stand out as crucial factors.

2016, Urdinez, Francisco, Mouron, Fernando, Schenoni, Luis, de Oliveira, Amâncio J.

If one interprets China's sizable rise in Latin America as an unprecedented phenomenon, it follows that the concurrent story of declining U.S. influence in the region is an event hastily acknowledged at best and ignored at worst. In this article, we ask whether Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America is related to the declining U.S. hegemonic influence in the region and explore how. To do so we analyze foreign direct investments, bank loans, and international trade from 2003 to 2014, when China became a major player in the region. We use data from 21 Latin American countries, and find that an inversely proportional relationship exists between the investments made by Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), bank loans, manufacturing exports, and the U.S. hegemonic influence exerted in the region. In other words, Beijing has filled the void left by a diminished U.S. presence in the latter's own backyard.