The proliferating Sino-US peer competition is increasingly impacting Latin American states and triggering uncertainty. As China’s expanding influence in the region challenges longstanding US supremacy in the western hemisphere and reshapes the strategic calculus for regional states, hedging behaviour becomes increasingly opportune. This most notably includes Brazil, the largest state in Latin America both politically and economically, whose hedging behaviour oscillated between governments, a characteristic normally associated with states facing higher systemic pressures. As such, how does the Sino-US peer competition impact Brazil’s hedging strategy? And why do coping behaviours differ on various indices between different administrations, from Lula to Bolsonaro? Findings suggest that depending on whether the incumbent government was left- or right-wing, Brazil’s hedge was recalibrated as either pro- or anti-US regional supremacy.

This article assesses the inner workings of Cuban diaspora statecraft behind the ‘La Nación y la Emigración’ Conference, post-Soviet era Cuba's first major outreach to the Cuban community abroad. In contrast to works observing how changing emigration demographics might have transformed Cuba, this study argues that the Cuban state purposefully tried to reshape the homeland–diaspora relationship through the design of its emigration strategies. Because the Cuban geopolitics of mobility had profound security, economic and ideological implications, the leadership discussed not just how to neutralise the counterrevolution abroad but how to address both the diaspora's needs and popular sentiment at home.

In this commentary, I consider Mariátegui's globality. I begin by discussing his status as the pre-eminent Latin American Marxist. I then consider the fact that he continues to be ignored or marginalised by scholarship in English on Marxism and the global history of the Left. I note, however, that in recent years, ‘global’ interest in Mariátegui (i.e. beyond Latin America) has increased. This leads me to a consideration of two types of Mariátegui's globality. First, a globality produced by his growing purchase as an ‘epistemologist of the South’ which is extending the applicability of his thought beyond Latin America. And second, a globality expressive of his role as a global actor; as someone who (i) sought to experience life globally, (ii) drew on global ideas, or ideas with globalising (or universalising) ambitions, to make sense of his own (local) context, and (iii) operated as an original interpreter of the global.

This article examines the literature on popular liberalism in nineteenth-century Mexico and the shortcomings of two interpretations: popular liberalism as an alternative to elite liberalism, and popular liberalism as a strategy to ultimately pursue non-liberal ends. It argues that both interpretations tend to overstate the distance between the liberal elite and its popular supporters because of an unexamined, dichotomous conception of liberalism and the people (generally Indigenous and non-Indigenous peasants) as opposites. It draws its examples from studies of local politics and sides with the interpretation of ‘liberalism tout court’ as the best available option to avoid reifications of liberalism and the popular.