President Hugo Chavez has used the windfall of high oil prices to remake Venezuela internally along the model of 21st-century socialism and, even more audaciously, to rewrite global relations by directly challenging U.S. hegemony. The dramatic ascendency of the country in hemispheric and global international relations over the past decade is the subject of this title.
Oil is the world's single most important commodity and its political effects are pervasive. Jeff D. Colgan extends the idea of the resource curse into the realm of international relations, exploring how countries form their foreign policy preferences and intentions. Why are some but not all oil-exporting 'petrostates' aggressive? To answer this question, a theory of aggressive foreign policy preferences is developed and then tested, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Petro-Aggression shows that oil creates incentives that increase a petrostate's aggression, but also incentives for the opposite. The net effect depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the preferences of its leader. Revolutionary leaders are especially significant. Using case studies including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, this book offers new insight into why oil politics has a central role in global peace and conflict.
Oil makes up one-third of Venezuela's entire GDP, and the United States is far and away Venezuela's largest trading partner. Relations between Venezuela and the United States, traditionally close for most of the last two centuries, began to fray as the end of the Cold War altered the international environment. U.S.-Venezuela Relations since the 1990s explores relations between these two countries since 1999, when Hugo Chavez came to office and proceeded to change Venezuela's historical relation with the United States and other democracies. The authors analyze the reasons for rising bilateral conflict, the decision-making process in Venezuela, the role played by public and private actors in shaping foreign policy, the role of other powers such as China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in shaping U.S.-Venezuelan relations, the role of Venezuela in Cuba and Colombia, and the impact of broader international dynamics in the bi-lateral relations.
Hugo Chávez won re-election in the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, despite a closer margin between candidates than in previous elections. The results were puzzling for those who believed that Chávez’s government had long ago reached its limits, while Chávez’s supporters were struck by the growth of the opposition vote. Thus understanding the Venezuelan election of 2012 has proved to be challenging, with various recent studies focused upon it. Luis F. Angosto Ferrández’s book advances two ideas not previously discussed: the relationship between electoral behavior in Venezuela and contemporary Latin American geopolitics, and the way that relationship is projected through the candidates’ appeal to narratives that situate Venezuela at the core of a heroic Latin American tradition and of a new regional process of integration. This edited volume first contextualizes and explains the results of the last re-election of Hugo Chávez in terms of its geopolitical conditionings and implications. Contributors tackle Latin American geopolitics by analyzing Venezuelan foreign policy and the country's role in continental projects of supra-national integration. Contributors also examine electoral strategy and tactics in order to show how the two main candidates built their campaign on emotional grounds as much on rational ones. This will be connected to the investigation of new narratives of national identification in contemporary Venezuela and how they may have practical implications in the design of policies addressing issues such as indigenous rights, community media and national security. Compiling state-of-the-art research on Latin American and Venezuelan politics, this book will appeal to academics and professionals who specialize in Latin American studies, international relations, democracy, and indigenous peoples.
"Valuable work explores the evolution of US-Venezuelan relations in terms of 'core cultural values' and disparities of power. Argues that the relationship between Venezuela and the US should take into account the vision and values of Venezuela, and that U
The post-cold war era presented security challenges that at one level are a continuation of the cold war era; at another level, these phenomena manifested in new forms. Whether the issues of economics and trade, transfer of technologies, challenges of intervention, or humanitarian crisis, the countries of the South (previously pejoratively labelled “Third World” or “developing” countries) have continued to address these challenges within the framework of their capabilities and concerns. The volume explores defence diplomacies, national security challenges and strategies, dynamics of diplomatic manoeuvers and strategic resource management of Latin American, southern African and Asian countries.
Inside the engine-room of China's economic growth—the China Development Bank Anyone wanting a primer on the secret of China's economic success need look no further than China Development Bank (CDB)—which has displaced the World Bank as the world's biggest development bank, lending billions to countries around the globe to further Chinese policy goals. In China’s Superbank, Bloomberg authors Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson outline how the bank is at the center of China's domestic economic growth and how it is helping to expand China's influence in strategically important overseas markets. 100 percent owned by the Chinese government, the CDB holds the key to understanding the inner workings of China's state-led economic development model, and its most glaring flaws. The bank is at the center of the country's efforts to build a world-class network of highways, railroads, and power grids, pioneering a lending scheme to local governments that threatens to spawn trillions of yuan in bad loans. It is doling out credit lines by the billions to Chinese solar and wind power makers, threatening to bury global competitors with a flood of cheap products. Another $45 billion in credit has been given to the country's two biggest telecom equipment makers who are using the money to win contracts around the globe, helping fulfill the goal of China's leaders for its leading companies to "go global." Bringing the story of China Development Bank to life by crisscrossing China to investigate the quality of its loans, China’s Superbank travels the globe, from Africa, where its China-Africa fund is displacing Western lenders in a battle for influence, to the oil fields of Venezuela. Offers a fascinating insight into the China Development Bank (CDB), the driver of China's rapid economic development Travels the globe to show how the CDB is helping Chinese businesses "go global" Written by two respected reporters at Bloomberg News As China's influence continues to grow around the world, many people are asking how far it will extend. China’s Superbank addresses these vital questions, looking at the institution at the heart of this growth.
