Political Science, International Studies and Latin American(ist) Geopolitics: Critical Diagnosis of a Non-Existing Dialogue

Latin American(ist) Political Science has experienced in recent years a shift in its research agenda. At the end of the 20th century, it thematically orbited around democratization, the subsequent acquisition of "institutional quality" by the region's new democracies, and the impact of both processes on the formulation of public policies. The study of foreign, defense and security policies was affected by these great theoretical and analytical tendencies of the discipline, which also exerted a considerable influence in international studies. However, in the 21st century, political studies were oriented towards problems related to statehood and territoriality: federalism, multilevel governance, nationalization/regionalization of governments, and "subnational politics". Slowly but surely, Political Science began to deal with questions that are the province of political geography, albeit with its back to it. This article argues that there is a fundamental problem in this geographical turn: the scant knowledge that political scientists and internationalists have about geopolitics and its main findings.