Latin American International Political Economy: contributions beyond the transatlantic divide

The way in which international political economy (IPE) developed in Anglo-Saxon countries set the main standards for its study in other regions of the world, establishing a transatlantic order that separated mainstream IPE from the periphery. This article is part of a debate that seeks to raise awareness of Latin American contributions to IPE. It underlines the connections between thought and political practice, examining how the subfield has developed between 2000 and 2021 by studying works published in the leading journals of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. Three central arguments are discussed. First, the field of IPE in Latin America developed before its conception in the Anglo-Saxon world and separately of mainstream views because distinctive regional problems did not fit well within the frameworks of mainstream approaches. Second, there is a vibrancy in the debate about IPE topics in regional journals, and the intellectual tradition of the 1950s and 1960s is under constant revision. Third, in contrast to the bias in mainstream IR that focuses on policy successes, Latin American IPE has been closely related to the formulation of policies that have often examined adversities in the implementation of policies connected to the different crises the region has faced.