Latin America and China: Primary Goods, Populism, and Political Leverage?

Indiana University's East Asian Studies Center presents a talk with Andrae Marak on the impact that political ideology and populism has on how governments have historically managed the extraction of oil and natural gas resources.

The presentation will examine the impact that political ideology and populism has on how governments have historically managed the extraction of oil and natural gas resources. This historical analysis is then applied to better understand the impact that Latin America’s most recent turn to the left has had on governance of the oil and gas sector (and economic policy more broadly). Then the presentation will shift to an examination of the ways in which China’s burgeoning economic growth have impacted Latin America’s broader extractive primary resource sector, focusing on the impact that improved terms of trade have had on Latin American governments’ ability to adopt a more nuanced response to the Washington Consensus.

Andrae Marak is chair of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and a professor of history and political science at Governors State University. He recently coedited Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Historical Perspectives on Contraband and Vice in North America’s Borderlands with Elaine Carey. His book At the Border of Empires: The Tohono O’odham, Gender and Assimilation, with Laura Tuennerman, will be published by the University of Arizona Press in early 2013.