Financial Diplomacy in the Global Periphery: Between Cooperation and Coercion. Theoretical-Empirical Approaches Based on the Credit Relationships of Argentina with Venezuela and China

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the characteristics of financial diplomacy in the global periphery during the early years of the 21st. century. Specifically, the paper focuses on the credit operations conducted Argentina with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the People´s Republic of China (prc) in order to overcome its international financial marginalization. As a hypothesis, the article argues that the channels and mechanisms built under the financial diplomacy ties between Argentina, Venezuela and the prc were enabled both by the accumulation of international reserves and by a political-identity affinity, although conditioned by their asymmetries. The results of the empirical analysis conclude that despite its relevance for the realization of transactions, the enabling factors of financial diplomacy had an unequal importance: the political-identity affinity (ideational instance) lacked behind the availability of resources (material instance). On the other hand, the patterns assumed by the channels and devices of financial diplomacy were effectively conditioned by the degree of asymmetry between the states. In this respect, the growing structural disparities between Argentina and the prc led to financial cooperative initiatives mostly characterized by a coercive logic, in contrast to what was observed regarding the links with Venezuela.