Japan's Development Policy in Latin America
Description
This book examines, with a particular emphasis on Brazil, how Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) intertwined with its economic diplomacy toward Latin America between 1960 and 2001. Using a neorealist lens and a comparative design that links ODA time series to trade balances and inward foreign direct investment, the book tests the correlation between aid, trade, and investment. It documents the roles of state agencies-MOFA, MITI/METI, JETRO, JBIC/JICA-and the sogo shosha in expanding productive capacities and generating persistent trade surpluses with the region. One of its core contributions is the periodization of four policy moments-war reparations (1945-1960), export-promotion aid (1960-1970), aid as a diplomatic resource (1970-1980), and aid as a foreign-policy instrument (1980-2001)-that explain the shift from postwar cooperation to active economic diplomacy. By moving beyond descriptive inventories to a causal account of ODA as a mechanism of economic insertion, the book provides historical evidence and an analytical scaffold for reassessing Japan-Latin America relations in the 20th century and for reinterpreting the policy tools that made them possible.
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Person
Adolfo Alberto Laborde Carranco is a full professor and director of CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas), a Mexican state institution specializing in the social sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in political and social sciences with a specialization in international relations from UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico, 2016). He also completed doctoral studies in international cooperation at Kobe University, Japan (2000-2004). In addition, he earned a postdoctoral degree from the Department of Mexican-American Studies at the University of Arizona, United States (2020). In his academic career, he has served as a professor of the "Asia-Pacific" course at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM (1996-2021); a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at Universidad Anáhuac, Mexico (2017-present); a professor at the Faculty of Business Studies at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico (2023); a research professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey (2009-2017); a research professor in the Department of Political and International Studies at the University of Quintana Roo (2005-2006); and a professor of Latin American Studies at Morton College in Cicero, Illinois, Chicago (2004). In parallel, he has been a visiting professor at various foreign universities, including the University of Córdoba, Argentina (2019); Fudan University, China (2016); University of Illinois at Chicago, United States (2015); DePaul University, Chicago, United States (2015); Central University, Santiago, Chile (2014); University of the Pacific, Lima, Peru (2014); and the IDEAZ Institute, Vienna, Austria (2012). From 2020 to 2023, he served as Fudan University's Ambassador for North America. He has published 22 books on international topics, 26 articles in academic journals, and 10 book chapters in the same field, in addition to numerous opinion pieces in newspapers. Adolfo Alberto Laborde Carranco has over 18 years of experience as an international affairs analyst in national and international media. He is a regular contributor to El Heraldo de México , where he writes on Asia and international economic relations. From February 2021 to May 2023, he served as Minister at the Embassy of Mexico in Japan, representing the Ministry of Economy. He is a Level 1 member of Mexico's National System of Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, SNII).
Content
Introduction.- Japan and its Foreign Policy in Latin America.- Official Development Assistance (oda).- Theories of International Aid.- Latin America's Ode to Japan.- Conclusions.