The political and pragmatic determinants of Chinese development finance in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2008–2019
Date
2025
Authors
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Albright ZC. The Political and Pragmatic Determinants of Chinese Development Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2008–2019. Latin American Politics and Society. 2025;67(2):78-97. doi:10.1017/lap.2024.54
Abstract
Much scholarly attention has been paid to how great powers have used development finance as a tool for projecting power and shaping the international order, with less given to how smaller countries navigate these dynamics. This article investigates the conditions under which Latin American countries borrow from institutions led by the declining hegemon, the United States, or the rising power, China. Specifically, it uses mixed methods to analyze 518 loans from the World Bank and Chinese banks, and interviews with policymakers in Ecuador to highlight the mechanisms of decisions, outline interactions between different factors, and identify factors that cannot be readily tested statistically. Results show that countries are diversifying their development finance between the two great powers, motivated by domestic political considerations such as party ideology and economic development priorities, as well as by international structures including the balance of power and the borrowing country’s foreign policy alignment with the United States.
Description
License
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Miami. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.