On December 19, Associate Fellow Daniel Agramont successfully defended his dissertation titled “China’s impact on the political economy of the Andean Region: A comparative analysis of Bolivia and Peru“ at Goethe University.
The economic and political rise of China and its rivalry with the US is a defining feature of the changing global order. As such, China is not only increasing its own position within the global economy but also its influence in the global South in general and Latin America in particular. Current academic debates consider China's rise either as an alternative path for the global South or as a contribution to the reproduction and deepening of center-periphery relations.
In a comparative analysis, the dissertation, supervised by Jonas Wolff, examines the increasing presence and role of China in Bolivia and Peru since 2005, in order to systematically identify the consequences for both economies. Drawing on World-Systems Theory and neo-Gramscian arguments, he identifies economic exploitation, political domination and ideological domination as three key dimensions that characterize center-periphery relations. He then applies these theoretical and methodological tools to assess the asymmetric politico-economic relations between China, Bolivia and Peru.
In doing so, the dissertation illustrates the exploitative economic structures based on asymmetric trade relations between primary commodity exporters on the one hand and exporters of capital and value-added products on the other. Although the Chinese government promotes this relationship through the narrative of a win-win scenario, Agramont shows that China promotes its own material interests, such as geopolitical and economic goals, and fosters dependency. At the same time, however, domestic institutions in Bolivia and Peru play an important role in voluntarily facilitating the relationship. As a result, the dissertation dismantles the binary view of the impact of China's rise in Latin America as either a win-win relationship or a new dependency.
Congratulations, Daniel!