Latin American Studies Series

hosted by Professor Jacqueline Mazza


OLDRICH KRPEC

Oldrich Krpec is an associate professor in the International Relations department at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. His field is economic history and international political economy. He focuses on economic policies in semi-peripheries and on projection of power into trade and development policies. Besides the economic dimension of foreign policy of central European countries, he currently works on projects dealing with Chinese economic expansion into central Europe and with comparison of developmental policies of Central Europe and Latin America. He believes that economic, social and political developments of Central and Eastern Europe in the last three decades is a fascinating field of study, which has much to offer to contemporary academic discussions. Krpec´s recent publications include "Grand Development Strategy or Simply Grandiose? China´s Diffusion of its Belt and Road Initiative into Central Europe," New Political Economy (2022) (with Carol Wise); "Czechoslovak Tariffs in the 1920s: an Example of Historical Specificity in Economic Policy," Slavic Review (2021) (with Vít Hloušek); "Political science in Central and Eastern Europe: integration with limited convergence in Czechia," European Political Science (2021) (with Jakub Eberle, Hubert Smekal and Petr Ocelík) or "War and international trade: Impact of trade disruption on international trade patterns and economic development," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy (2019) (with Vladan Hodulák).

CAROL WISE

Carol Wise is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California. She joined USC in 2002 after spending eight years on the Faculty at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. She specializes in international political economy and development, with an emphasis on Latin America and Pacific Asia. She has written widely on trade integration, exchange rate crises, institutional reform, and the political economy of market restructuring in the region. Wise just completed a book-length project---Dragonomics: How Latin America is Maximizing (or Missing Out) on China's International Development Strategy (Yale University Press, 2020)---which analyzes the rapid and remarkable ties that have developed between China and Latin America since the 1990s. Her study approaches this phenomenon from three main angles: the relative rise of China in the global economy such that it has now replaced the U.S. as the most important trading partner for an increasing number of countries in Latin America; the more heterodox and flexible approach to economic policy management that increased relations with China has instilled in its main Latin American partners; and, the political implications of the growing presence of a "new" hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, one that has resisted the longstanding U.S. notion that liberal capitalist democracy is the only acceptable form of governance. Wise's most recent publications include The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations in the New Millennium (co-edited with Margaret Myers, Routledge, 2016); "Playing both Side of the Pacific: Latin America's Free Trade Agreements with China," Pacific Affairs (2016); and, "Conceptualizing China-Latin America Relations in the 21st Century," The Pacific Review (2018). Prof. Wise held the Fulbright-Masaryk University distinguished Chair, Czech Republic, in 2019.