Syllabus
1. Latin America as a region - conceptual and historical introduction
2. From U.S. backyard to superpower battlefield: Latin America during Cold War
3. Missing in picture? On Latin American interstate wars
4. (De)constructing democracy: Latin America between autocracy and democratic rejuvenation
5. Insurgency and counterinsurgency: theory and practice
6. New menace? War on drugs and its effects
7. Environmental challenges and security in Latin America
8. Back in vogue? Latin America and new global powers
9. Current challenges: Brazil
10. Current challenges: Colombia
11. Current challenges: Venezuela
12. Current challenges: Peru
Annotation
The course focuses on Latin America as a region from a specific perspective of security and conflict studies. A region which on the one hand reverberates in academic, political and public debates due to specific issues and challenges (coups, insurgencies, terrorism, environmental risks), while on the other hand remains relatively distant from the European perspective, Latin America represents a special case worth studying and dissecting.
For this purpose, the course first establishes the historical and conceptual boundaries of the region, including the formative period of Cold War. Subsequently, key thematic issues, with relevance across the region, are analysed: interstate wars, autocracy, civil wars and insurgencies, production of and trade with illegal drugs and influence of external state actors.
In the final part, the course focuses on four selected countries in which the aforementioned issues are demonstrated, typically in a mutually overlapping manner.