Project

The South Goes Global: Latin American & Caribbean Quests for a Multipolar International Order

This is a joint PhD project between UNU-CRIS and Ghent University.

Date Published
1 Apr 2026
Expected Start Date
01 Mar 2026
Expected End Date
28 Feb 2030
Project Type
Research
Project Status
Active

The research project "Multipolar Autonomy and Progressive Populism: South American Foreign Policies in the 21st Century" examines how ideology impacts foreign policy decisions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. Through Foreign Policy Analysis and International Political Economy, the project argues that, in the South American context, a progressive ideology is needed to generate foreign policies oriented toward the Global South. The objective is to examine the drivers that enabled South-South cooperation in the selected countries, thereby distancing them from the Global North. Theoretically, this work is grounded in the Latin American tradition of conceptualizing autonomy and dependency. Methodologically, it combines interviews, OSINT, and trade analysis. Finally, this research aims to present multipolar autonomy as an International Relations theory through which Latin American foreign policies can express autonomy and gain margins of maneuver in a multipolar world.