U.S. and Latin American Relations

The third edition of U.S. and Latin American Relations offers detailed theoretical and historical analyses essential for understanding contemporary US-Latin American relations. Utilizing four different theories (realism, liberal institutionalism, dependency, and autonomy) as a framework, the text provides a succinct history of relations from Latin American independence through the Covid-19 era before then examining critical contemporary issues such as immigration, human rights, and challenges to US hegemony. Engaging pedagogical features such as timelines, research questions, and annotated resources appear throughout the text, along with relevant excerpts from primary source documents. The third edition features a new chapter on the role of extrahemispheric actors such as China and Russia, as well as a significantly revised chapter on citizen insecurity that examines crime, drug trafficking, and climate change. Instructor resources include a test bank, lecture slides, and discussion questions.

Gregory Weeks is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has a long track record of writing clear, accessible, and empirically grounded work on US-Latin American relations and Latin American politics. He is the author of another textbook, Understanding Latin American Politics (2014), and has authored a blog on the topic for fifteen years. He served as Editor-in-Chief of The Latin Americanist for fifteen years as well.

Michael Allison is Professor and Chair of Political Science at The University of Scranton. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Teaching/Research Award to Guatemala in 2013 and a Fulbright Student Scholar Award to El Salvador in 1997. He has been recognized as the 2019 Alpha Sigma Nu Teacher of the Year at The University of Scranton in 2021 and won the Excellence in Integrating Mission and Justice into the Curriculum Award in 2015 and 2019. He has provided expert witness testimony in over fifty asylum cases for Salvadorans and Guatemalans seeking asylum in the United States.