Abstract

CUADRO, Mariela  and  FRENKEL, Alejandro. Entre el orientalismo periférico y el occidentalismo. Continuidades y discontinuidades en las políticas exteriores de Cristina Kirchner y Mauricio Macri hacia Medio Oriente. Relac. int. [online]. 2023, vol.32, n.65, pp.233-254. ISSN 2314-2766.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.24215/23142766e181.

This article analyzes Argentina's (F)foreign (P)policy towards Middle Eastern countries following a comparative and descriptive approach, taking as case studies the governments of the Frente para la Victoria (2003-2015) –paying special attention to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's administrations- and of the Alianza Cambiemos (2015-2019). To this end, we will focus on both governments’ world views and the ways of relating to it, their specific readings of the Middle East, and their policies towards this region in specific subjects: international trade, Gulf countries, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (also related to the Iranian issue). We have found that, despite each government’s antagonistic discourses on the "country model", their different views on the world, and their diverse Foreign Policy strategies, during the analyzed periods analyzed we can identify both continuities and discontinuities in the relationship between Argentina and the Middle East countries. For instance, while the discourse of peripheral orientalism – which negatively essentializes the Middle East - was shared by both governments, Cambiemos' foreign policy combined peripheral orientalism with a firm occidentalism.

Keywords : Argentina; Middle East; foreign policy; kirchnerism; Cambiemos.

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