This chapter introduces a new framework for understanding US–China rivalry through the concepts of economic weight and displacement. It argues that China has economically displaced the US in much of Latin America by becoming an alternative provider of goods and services, despite not surpassing the US globally. The author develops a theory emphasizing the role of local agency in target countries in shaping this process. Economic displacement is presented as a gradual shift where China’s economic influence surpasses that of the US. The chapter outlines how this displacement may erode US political leverage through deteriorating public opinion, changing elite perspectives, and diminished influence in international organizations. By focusing on structural power rather than intentionality, this framework offers new insights into the dynamics of great power competition in the developing world.

This chapter lays out the book’s argument in two parts. First, it first develops the concept of self-determination as understood by state and non-state actors in the Global South to apply to the legitimate exercise of power in the international system. Rather than requiring strict sovereignty and exclusion of outside actors, self-determination is about the nature of cooperation and international involvement. It requires that people, through their governments, be able to domestically affirm international rules and to meaningfully participate in their enforcement. The second part of this chapter explains how establishing regional organizations as an authority over issue areas can be a strategy for realizing self-determination and why, in the case of human rights, it necessitated compromising on the norm of non-interference. This strategy is effective at deterring pressure from Western governments because it combines and appeals to widely held beliefs about the legitimacy of self-rule with beliefs about the importance of exercising power through international organizations.

Why have regional organizations become authorities over human rights and international intervention, and what explains the differences in regional authority across different regions? Why did leaders in some parts of the Global South go from rejecting any interference to arguing for the central role of regional organizations in international interference? This chapter introduces the central questions addressed by this book and provides an overview of its core argument, focusing on the creation of new regional authority at one important moment: the emergence of regional organizations as authorities over human rights. This was the first time when leaders in the Global South changed from arguing for complete non-interference to arguing that legitimate interference should be carried out by or with the involvement of regional organizations. They did so as a strategy of subtle resistance to new challenges to self-determination, in the form of economic enforcement of human rights by Western governments. In regions targeted by this enforcement, leaders responded by establishing their regional organizations as authorities over human rights, accepting regional interference for the first time.

Unicorns from emerging economies have a significant impact on entrepreneurial ecosystems locally, regionally and globally; however, little is known about these privately held entities. This chapter presents the analytical framework that brings the research in this book together; it is meant as a structured system for understanding the forces of the distal and proximal environments under whose influence unicorns emerge. The building blocks of the proposed analytical framework include: macro trends, such as the health of the global economy; geopolitical power balance and the race for technological superiority; the elements of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem; and the specific characteristics of unicorns. To a degree, these all enable opportunities for accelerated growth to arise within the context of the emerging economies of the Global South.

On the basis of the previous chapters, we summarise the dimensions along which unicorns from developed and emerging economies differ, recognising the relative strengths of the constituent elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystems of China, India, MENA, Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia as described in this book. This overview serves as a point of departure for researchers and policymakers in further assessing and understanding the transformational potential of unicorns for countries of the Global South. We offer a list of conjectures that require additional data, analysis and validation to find an answer to the overarching question: Will unicorns from emerging economies be able to materialise into significant and tangible economic and social improvements?

This chapter explores implications of the argument made in this book for other areas of international relations scholarship and for contemporary international politics, with regional authority and self-determination continuing to occupy an important place in the international politics of the Global South. It considers how incorporating the importance of self-determination, and the idea of regional organizations as a means of realizing it, can provide more complete understandings of contemporary political phenomena. I discuss how the argument in this book sheds light on the Global South’s dissatisfaction with liberal norms and institutions, the openness of democratic states in the Global South to cooperation with illiberal powers, and present-day dynamics of regionalism, including the creation of “new” regions and the growth of “authoritarian” regional organizations.

This chapter introduces and operationalizes the Economic Weight Index to measure China’s and the United States’s economic influence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from 2001 to 2020. The index, comprising trade, aid, investment, and loans data, reveals China’s dramatic rise in economic weight across all world regions, with LAC experiencing the most pronounced growth. Conversely, the US saw a significant contraction in its economic weight in LAC during this period. The analysis highlights regional variations, with South America experiencing the most substantial increase in Chinese economic weight and decrease in US influence. This quantitative approach provides a nuanced understanding of the shifting economic dynamics between China, the US, and LAC, laying the groundwork for exploring the causes and consequences of these changes.

This chapter describes the changes in beliefs about human rights that occurred in the 1970s and the new forms of enforcement that this encouraged and enabled. This included the use of economic pressure to enforce human rights. Beginning at this time, enforcing human rights through international interference came to be understood as not just permissible, but as the duty of the international community. In the context of these changing beliefs, Western governments began to use economic pressure to enforce human rights in the Global South. However, as this chapter demonstrates, these governments systematically enforced human rights in regions where enforcement was relatively cheap and easy. They did so in Latin America and Africa, while at the same time subsuming human rights to other strategic priorities in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. These enforcement policies clashed with understandings of self-determination held by actors throughout the Global South, and they were regarded as an illegitimate imposition. However, in the context of changing beliefs about human rights, appealing to the norm of non-interference was no longer effective at deterring Western interference.

When thinking about the world outside of “the West,” scholarship can fall into generalizing frameworks in which comparison with the West predominates or in which the world is divided up into somewhat homogenized “areas.” How can we reckon with the effects and ongoing histories of imperialism and occupation, uneven transnational dynamics of exploitation and extraction, and racial capitalism while not understanding those subjected to oppression and domination as merely passive in the face of those processes? How do we engage with forms of difference while understanding them as multidimensional, permeable, as opposed to essentialized expressions of local/national/regional culture? How do we attend to forms of place-based specificity while engaging the heterogeneity and diversity of the area, country, and/or population under discussion and while also addressing dynamic relations with other peoples and places – both chosen and coerced? This chapter considers how queer and trans studies have taken up these challenges.

As climate disasters escalate, the Global South faces a staggering $387 billion annual shortfall in adaptation finance. Despite urgent needs, adaptation remains severely underfunded, sidelined by investors who favour mitigation projects with clearer returns. This chapter explores how philanthropic capital can be the missing piece, unlocking adaptation finance through risk-tolerant investments, blended finance, and ecosystem-wide collaboration.

It examines India as a case study, showcasing how philanthropic organizations can de-risk adaptation projects, support climate resilience, and influence policy reforms. Drawing on global data and case studies, the chapter argues that philanthropy can catalyse systemic change by bridging financing gaps, scaling high-impact solutions, and fostering collaboration between governments, businesses, and civil society, ultimately driving an adaptation revolution.

This chapter considers how Australians have looked to South America for what they might become while Argentinians looked to Australia for what Argentina could become. It traces William Lane’s failed utopic colonies in Paraguay in the 1890s and, following her participation in one of them, Mary Gilmore’s engagement with and promotion of Latin American culture to other Australian writers. It considers Latin American migration to Australia, particularly in the late twentieth century. It discusses the role of little magazines, small presses and radio shows in encouraging poetry by Latin American migrants. It analyses their sense of marginalisation to mainstream Australian literary culture, and shifts towards decentring Australia in both writers’ transcultural movements and framings by anthologies. Lastly, the chapter examines recent encounters with Latin America by Australian-born poets and discusses competing framings of the South, including by writers such as J. M. Coetzee and John Mateer.