In this chapter we provide a general overview of trends in PTAs in Latin America (LA), with an emphasis on PTA design and diffusion. We base the chapter around four primary tasks. First, we review extant theoretical accounts underlying the motivations for LA countries’ engagement with PTAs. We classify countries into three groups – the liberal traders, post-liberals and anti-liberals – based on their approach to PTA partner selection and design. Second, we compare Latin America to other world regions. We show that countries in the region sign many PTAs on average, but that design features vary considerably within the region. Third, we show that PTA design in the region is influenced by both economic and political factors. Fourth, we use quantitative text analysis to analyse whether common models or templates can be observed in the region. We find some evidence that agreements involving the US have diffused within the region, but we fail to uncover strong evidence of a single template or templates that LA countries routinely adopt. Overall, our analysis paints a picture of a heterogeneous region where domestic political and economic factors affect how countries engage with the world economy through PTAs.

Chapter 4 describes how chemists co-constructed the new regime, to the extent that totalitarian political ambitions often converged with totalitarian chemistry projects. In public, aggressive rhetoric against liberal values helped them to reinforce their own professional positions and enthusiastically ascribe to the political and religious values of the dictatorship. The new Francoist chemistry was therefore constructed in strong opposition to the supposedly overly theoretical, elitist, centralised and ‘ideological’ research of the JAE to promote a ‘real’ applied chemistry. The totalitarian dream of the new regime materialised in a new chemistry that had to serve an ambitious reorganisation of the economy of the country through raw materials, industrial progress under strict centralised control and new applied chemistry research lines. Here, the research policies of José María Albareda at the CSIC, the fascist control of the Sindicato Nacional de Industrias Químicas and Emilio Jimeno’s plan for a totalitarian organisation of chemistry in Spain are poignant examples. The chapter also addresses the ways in which the marriage between chemistry and religion contributed to the legitimisation of the regime.