An 'authoritarian nexus'? China's alleged special relationship with autocratic states in Latin America

Abstract

China's rise is often interpreted as a harbinger of a new era in world politics and raises the question if such a power transition may impact upon patterns of democratic rule across the globe. There is growing interest in whether China acts as an outside stabilizer for other authoritarian regimes. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the international dimension of autocratic rule by focusing on Chinese Latin American policy. Using the method of structured focused comparisons, we want to assess whether China's relations towards the Latin American autocracies Cuba and Venezuela differ from those with structurally similar, but democratic cooperation partners in the region, namely Costa Rica and Chile. The guiding question is whether we can detect such a pattern of specific bilateral relationships between China and other autocracies, leading to an 'authoritarian nexus' in Chinese foreign policy.