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In a world of growing international competition and rivalry between China and the United States, Latin America and the European Union (EU) are caught in the same thorny dilemma. Positioned between these global giants, both regions are facing a retorn to a Westphalian system of nation-states, which undermines their roles as emerging regional players. In view of these new global challenges in Latin America and the EU, this paper uses a qualitative and comparative approach to explore foreign policy discourses on autonomy in both regions. It examines their goals and priorities and assesses the potential regional and interregional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trilateral South-South Cooperation (TSSC) for development has generated great debate over whether these alliances constitute a new paradigm for development or merely disguise a new form of imperialism. Beyond categorisations, this paper presents a more nuanced image and examines the focus of TSSC solidarity, specifically, the intrinsically political nature of development and the unequal power relations at its heart. Starting with the TSSC memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Brazil, Mozambique and the World Bank, the narratives are analysed of agricultural development and the social imaginaries that support it in order to better understand the patterns and motivations of solidarity. By showing the colonial, capitalist and patriarchal rationale that persists in the conception of solidarity used in the current development framework, this paper proposes the decolonisation of this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this introductory paper is to contextualise, via a historiographical reflection, the nine papers selected for this special edition of Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, which focuses on "using past international cooperation to rethink development", prioritising "alternative critical approaches". As the historical perspective is missing from most publications in this shared field of Development Studies and International Relations, this introduction presents original works - for their empirical, comparative and/or theoretical contribution - in contrast to the prevailing interpretative frameworks (interdependentist from International Relations, and problem-solving from Development Studies), giving a voice to authors and problems from the countries of the South both as aid recipients and as cooperation providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the different possible Colombian postconflict scenarios led the aim of a stable and lasting peace to be connected with the realisation of agrarian reform and guaranteed access to land as a way to overcome territorial differences and the urban'rural divide. To achieve this, structural transformation of the Colombian countryside and acceptance of the territorial approach became central parts of the Peace Agreement (or Final Agreement) signed in 2016 between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. This paper analyses the territorial approach adopted in this agreement, as well as its level of implementation so far, and accepts that the lack of progress on the territoriality of the Colombian conflict will make it difficult to achieve the objectives set out in the peace agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official Development Assistance (ODA) received a new boost at the start of the 21st century, but this did not translate into a meaningful decrease in poverty and inequality on the periphery. In Latin America, under the leadership of governments called progressive or post-neoliberal, significant advances were observed to this effect, with the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia paradigmatic in terms of socioeconomic development and the political and cultural inclusion achieved. Beginning with a critique of US ODA to Latin America, and considering the case of Bolivia, this paper seeks to open up potential ways of underpinning a theoretical line in the political praxis of development that maintains a positive sense of this notion, and which is at the same time able to break with the neoliberal perspective and dispute the scepticism of post-structuralist radicalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically evaluates the results in terms of economic growth and structural transformation of the new economic model implemented by most Latin American countries since the early 1990s. The new model, which had macroeconomic stability and export orientation as its core components, has been unable to develop more dynamic comparative advantages in the current global era and, as a result, has resulted in lower rates of economic growth than in Asia. The paper closes with an analysis of the impact of the current financial crisis in the region. It highlights the short-term costs, but also acknowledges the opportunities that the crisis is creating to promote a greater number of new progressive development alternatives that place more emphasis on the role of learning and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the border shared by Peru, Colombia and Brazil has become an enclave of drug production and trafficking for the international markets. It is a territory whose control is disputed by non-state actors and where state security forces suffer from severe material and transport limitations. This paper takes an ethnographic approach to explain the limitations of border security and the institutional challenges of controlling drug and wood trafficking in this context. It places the ideas of reproduction and social change at the centre of the discussion on drugs and borders, as key ways of thinking about the dynamics of growing and processing coca-derived drugs in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse theory is useful for understanding the creation of borders, whether material or imaginary. This paper addresses three situations on Mexico's southern border between 2000 and 2015 in which elements of discourse theory may be applied. The outcomes were the following: 1) correlations may be made between the elements of the discourse moving from the northern to the southern border, but not in the opposite direction; 2) the process of securitising the discourse about migrants is continuous, and new securitising elements are regularly added; 3) an "elastic borders" phenomenon exists, where borders extend or retract, thereby creating new border regions; and 4) discourses around the southern border are constructed with more pejorative elements than the northern, despite the fact that crime rates are higher in the north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]