01/01/2021 20:07
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 01/01/2021 8:12 PM
Intellectual and prominent Argentine researcher on international relations, Carlos Escudé - who died with the beginning of this 2021 after spending several weeks hospitalized by the Covid - was a political scientist and prolific author of a large number of books and academic articles and essays on foreign policy Argentina.
Possessor of a vast culture, born polemicist and with sometimes surprising positions, he wielded a personal style that combined erudition with frontal and fiery argumentation, not without irony.
He was born on August 10, 1948 in Buenos Aires.
Trained at the Argentine Catholic University in sociology and with postgraduate doctoral degrees in Political Science and International Relations at Yale University and St. Antony's College, Oxford University, during the 1990s he was special advisor to Chancellor Guido di Tella.
He is credited with the authorship of the idea of "carnal relations" with the United States.
, a concept popularized by Di Tella to graph the alignment with the United States and the Western powers, behind which there was a strategy that Escudé framed in the so-called “peripheral realism”, a category that he explained in his book Peripheral Realism: Theoretical Bases for a New Argentine Foreign Policy, published by Planeta in 1992. There it argued that impoverished, vulnerable countries with little autonomy in international politics, as is the case of Argentina, should be linked to the great powers.
This idea implied “non-confrontation” with the hegemonic powers, but, a contrary sensu, cooperation to increase “the power base and the well-being of the population”.
He understood that Argentina was a "geographically remote" country and that it should have its own realistic theory, appropriate to its situation in the international context.
Twenty years later, he revised and updated his theory of "peripheral realism" applying it to the rise of China as a new emerging global superpower with which the country should establish a privileged relationship.
Together with the former Vice Chancellor Andrés Cisneros, he coordinated a History of Foreign Relations of the Argentine Republic, which is an obligatory reference source for scholars and researchers, fifteen volumes that cover from the frustrated English invasions of 1806 until the end of the administration of Raúl Alfonsín de 1989.
Escudé was principal investigator at Conicet, professor of Argentine Foreign Policy at the Center for Advanced Studies of the National University of Córdoba, member of the CARI adviser and director of the Center for Studies on Religion, State and Society (CERES), which operates within the Seminary Latin American Rabbinic Marshall T. Meyer.
Previously, he worked as a teacher at the Universities of Belgrano, Torcuato di Tella, UCEMA, FLACSO and at the Institute of Foreign Service of the Nation.
In 1984 he received the Guggenheim Fellowship to study relations between the United States and Argentina.
In 1986 he received the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins for his public campaign in favor of peace and friendship between Argentina and Chile.
In 1987 he received the Bernardo Houssay del Conicet Prize.
In 1996, the Konex diploma as one of the five best Argentine political scientists of the decade.
In a note published in
Clarín
, in 1997, he wrote “Since the publication in 1983 of my work Great Britain, the United States and the Argentine decline (financed by generous scholarships from the United States government), I have striven to show my compatriots that the Argentine challenges they only carry gigantic costs to American politics. "
In recent years he had some resounding public interventions, since his conversion to religious Judaism with mystical roots adopting the name of Najmán ben Abraham Avinu, and his criticism of the judicial investigations on the AMIA case and the memorandum with Iran during the government of Cristina Kirchner (He even wrote a libel with the title "And Luis D'Elía was right"), to the opposition to the quarantine, more recently, with criticism of the restriction measures to face the coronavirus pandemic.
He was married to the sociologist Mónica La Madrid, who also died from this cause on September 30.
In social networks, colleagues from the academic world, former students and referents from the political and diplomatic field highlighted his career, agreeing that his legacy constitutes a
scientific and cultural heritage,
beyond political positions.