Argentina and the spatial politics of extractive infrastructures under US-China tensions

MARCELO SAGUIER; VILA SEOANE, MAXIMILIANO FACUNDO

The Rise of the Infrastructure State: How Us-China Rivalry Shapes Politics and Place Worldwide

Policy Press

Lugar: Bristol; Año: 2021;

We explore the implications of US-China global tensions through the politics of infrastructure in Argentina. Specifically,we look at the oil, gas, and mining sectors where the US and Chinese governments have expressed particular interest in promoting infrastructure projects or resisting rival efforts to do so. We ask: how is the manifestation of these infrastructure projects related or attributable to US-China competition? Second and more importantly, what can we learn about the processes around which spatial politics are structured and contested within ongoing trajectories of global infrastructure integration? Drawing on the notion of the infrastructure state, we show how spatial politics are organized and altered as part of the ongoing restructuring of the state in response to US-China competition.