El Outsider: Journal of International Relations and Political Science
El Outsider is an academic journal for the dissemination of critical analysis on political issues in the areas of International Relations and Political Science. The publication is annual, free, open access and published by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). Subject to an editorial process of peer review using the double-blind review method, El Outsider offers different spaces for contribution to dynamize and disseminating of knowledge within the editorial line. All the published content is compiled, edited and reviewed by the Editorial Committee, made up of students and professors from the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (COCISOH) of the USFQ. Journal URL: https://eloutsider.com/ Access to contents: Archivos OJS, Biblioteca LHL ISSN (online): 1390-8901 Indexed in: LEXIS, Archive, ROAD, Crossref, Dialnet
The authors, by publishing in this journal, accept the following terms: The authors will retain their copyrights and will guarantee the journal the right of first publication of their work, which will be simultaneously subject to the Creative Commons Acknowledgement License that allows third parties to share the work as long as its author and its first publication in this journal are indicated. Authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work, thus being able to publish it in a monographic volume or reproduce it in other ways, provided that the initial publication in this journal is indicated. Authors are allowed and encouraged to disseminate their work via the Internet: Before journal submission, authors can deposit the manuscript in preprint servers/repositories, including arXiv, bioRxiv, figshare, PeerJ Preprints, and SSRN, among others, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase citations of the published work (See The effect of open access). After submission, it is recommended that authors deposit their article in their institutional repository, personal web page, or scientific social network (such as Zenodo, ResearchGate o Academia.edu).
The editors’ letter extends a special thank you to all our contributors, whether members of the Editorial Committee or Expert Reviewers. We hope you enjoy every article in this tenth edition.
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Sebastián Armijos Guzmán, Flor Guamán https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Emilie Dupuits https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Alumni Spot features interviews with prominent alumni from the International Relations and Political Science programs at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Four students who continue to thrive in their professional lives. They share their journey through university and offer advice for all International Relations and Political Science students.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dharma https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This article analyzes the relationship between masculinities, territory, and security from a feminist and alter-geopolitical perspective. Considering the increase in femicides in Ecuador and the racialized stigmatization of masculinity, it examines how men have been subjected to social determinisms that legitimize violence. The argument is made that alternative masculinities can create safe territories through non-violent practices and forms of re-existence, challenging hegemonic masculinity. Finally, it concludes that the male body, when politicized, becomes a means of resistance and symbolic appropriation of space.
Acercamientos Académicos/Academic Approaches
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Sebastián Armijos Guzmán https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The present study examines the War on Drugs as a mechanism of political and bureaucratic control, arguing that this strategy has failed as an efective way to act against drug traficking. Explores its origins and consolidation, with a particular focus on the role of the United States in promoting prohibitionist policies and the efects on Latin America. Despite decades of eforts, strategies centered on interdiction, eradication, and fnancial aid for development have not reduced drug supply and demand. Instead, they have strengthened drug cartels, increased violence, and weakened state institutions. Initiatives such as Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative have proven inefective and a factor to delve into structural issues in production countries. Furthermore, the infuence of international agencies and the U.S. government has deep-rooted this model, hindering producer nations from evaluate alternative approaches such as regulation, decriminalization, or legalization. Political and bureaucratic interests amplify U.S. hegemony in the region rather than addressing the root causes of drug-related challenges. This study underscores the necessity of rethinking drug policy through frameworks developed within Latin America; emphasizing approaches rooted in regional realities rather than externally imposed paradigms
Copyright (c) 2025 Iván Amoroso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This article exposes how the hidden curriculum, patriarchy in education and symbolic inequalities are silently reproduced in the Ecuadorian educational system. Therefore, general examples of urban public and private schools are presented that demonstrate practices that reinforce gender stereotypes and hierarchies. As a theoretical response, feminist pedagogy is addressed through two specific experiences, one in Uruguay and the other in Ecuador, which exemplify its possible application in educational practice. Finally, the research is developed under a qualitative methodology, based on a critical bibliographic review of relevant research and authors who address these topics from a critical and contemporary perspective.
Copyright (c) 2025 Samay Guevara Aragón https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Significance of the Ecuador-Spain Debt Conversion Program for Education and Scientific Researh 2005-2022
This article examines the Ecuador-Spain Debt Conversion Program (PCDEE), implemented between 2005 and 2022, as an innovative tool for international cooperation and sustainable development. The program focused on projects in education, science, and clean energy, primarily benefiting vulnerable areas in Ecuador. Through a multi- disciplinary assessment, it highlights positive impacts on strategic sectors, including improvements in education, research, and energy transition, as well as post-disaster reconstruction. However, it also identifies structural limitations such as reliance on external funding, limited local participation in decision-making, and the absence of independent external evaluations. The study concludes that, although the PCDEE is a valuable model, its success depends on strengthening evaluation frameworks, governance, and ensuring long-term sustainability.
Copyright (c) 2025 Francisco Eloy Castillo Merino, Pascual Ramiro Yepez Morocho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This essay traces the journey through which individuals, once omnivores, adopt veganism out of conviction. Using a focus group, it analyzes the steps involved in choosing this diet. In this regard, the article aims to understand how social interactions and contextual conditions influence the vegan trajectory. Employing a qualitative methodology, it reconstructs this personal process into a standardized one, highlighting shared experiences. The study seeks to explore areas often overlooked by the sociology of food, particularly concerning how individuals come to embrace veganism. To this end, it reviews relevant literature and presents this trajectory as comprising three stages: early veganism, the transition phase, and consolidation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Iván Menes Aguirre https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Ana María Correa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Doménica Rivera Suárez, Juliana Arturo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This section is a follow-up of outstanding USFQ International Relations and Political Science graduates.
Copyright (c) 2024 Samira Cevallos, Juan Sebastián Armijos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Political shaping in university students in Ecuador: the cases of USFQ and UCE
This paper approaches how Ecuadorian academy shapes the political perspectives of undergraduate students, considering two specific realities: public universities and private universities. For this, I analyzed undergraduate students’ experiences —each of them did belong to majors related to humanities and social sciences— of two Ecuadorian universities: Universidad Central del Ecuador (UCE), as representant of public-funding institutions, and Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), as representant of private universities. I used qualitative methods, including a total of twelve interviews and one focal group. From these testimonies, on the one hand, I found evidence of a vast support of leftist views at UCE. On the other hand, I concluded that USFQ’s environment emphasized in the support of liberal —in its classical approach— values. However, I remark that there is huge political diversity in both universities, as well as many ideological tinges that shape political perspectives, including several factors such as socioeconomical conditions or the college of a student.
Copyright (c) 2024 Iván Menes Aguirre https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Nationalization of the citizen participation in Ecuador: a legal and political assessment
Unlike the previous political charters of Ecuador, the Constitution of the Republic of 2008 ("CRE") managed to materialize an idea present in Article 72, literal a, of the constitutional drafting of 1997. Our Magna Carta distanced itself from the classic Montesquieu scheme, which placed three exclusive and essential powers that a state should contain: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The Constituent Assembly of Montecristi decided that in order to "democratize" the state power even further, it was pertinent to introduce two functions of equal hierarchy: including the relevant one in this case, the function of transparency and social control. However, the objectives proposed in consideration of the latter function have never been achieved. This essay will proceed to carry out a political-legal analysis regarding the nationalization of citizen participation in Ecuador.
Copyright (c) 2024 Alberto Bonilla Manotoa, Ivana Matijevic https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Nationalism: critiques and perspectives on the emergence of Latin American nations.
This article reviews the book Nación y estado en Iberoamérica: el lenguaje político en tiempo de independencias written by José Carlos Chiaramonte, published in 2004, to understand a critical perspective on how the meanings of political concepts and social structures, such as 'State' and 'nation', have been constructed and understood in different ways, depending on the historical context in which they are presented. In addition to understanding that many nationalist and patriotic discourses can fall into biased reflections due to misusing these voices and their meanings.
Copyright (c) 2024 Doménica Rivera Suárez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
In the following text, the political history of Argentina is approached with a particular focus on Peronism as a transcendental populist phenomenon that has shaped the country's trajectory as it marked local development and profoundly influenced the evolution of Argentine society, establishing the social and political bases that have persisted in the national context to the present day. The analysis extends to the present, examining the political discourse of Javier Milei, a contemporary character who has emerged strongly in the Argentine political scene. The complexities of his rhetoric are also explored, as elements very close to populism are evidenced, in spite of proclaiming to be contrary to it. Thus, it ranges from positive self-representation to strategies of negative presentation of the other and examines its relationship with Peronism and local populism. Through this analysis, we seek to provide a comprehensive understanding of populist political dynamics in Argentina, connecting the past with the present to shed light on the factors that have defined and continue to define the country's political reality.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mathew Valencia Casa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Historical responsibility for climate justice and gender inequalities in climate change
The article addresses the insufficient attention given to social dimensions, particularly gender, in international proposals to tackle climate change. It highlights the historical responsibility of Global North countries in climate change and the need for their acknowledgment and remediation to achieve true climate justice. The historical responsibility and its impact on climate justice, as well as gender inequities in the climatic context, are theoretically analyzed. The article also examines one of the main limitations of the Paris Agreement and reveals deficiencies in international negotiations on climate change. Finally, it advocates for the need for public policies that address gender inequities, emphasizing the importance of the intersection between historical responsibility and gender inequities in the fight against climate change.
Copyright (c) 2024 Anthony Trujillo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Forg(c)ing Israel. The use of rhetoric to create and maintain the State
The present article analyzes the evolution of the State of Israel through the rhetoric used to justify and maintain itself in the international system, despite criticisms of internal governance and the conflict with Palestine. Through the analysis of formative events for politics and government, the discourses used, their how and why, as well as the effects they have had on the population, are reviewed. Likewise, the current war in Gaza is addressed to understand the discursive management with transversality to themes inherent to the Jewish experience before and after Israel. Topics explored include the Holocaust, militarization, race and ethnicity, religion, and national identity.
Copyright (c) 2024 Juan Sebastián Armijos Guzmán https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Pasto rebellion of 1823: popular royalism and indigenous agency in Independence times
In contrast to national history, which in the face of the emerging national identity, characterizes any study on the monarchy in times of independence as disloyal or misleading. Ethnohistory recognizes populations marginalized by (H)history as active, dynamic and multivocal agents. During the period of 1811-1824, the province of Los Pastos took up arms against the independence-republican project. Specifically, the Pasto rebellion of 1823, commanded by Colonel Agustin Agualongo and carried out by the popular sectors, who in favor of their cultural, political and economic interests, strategically allied themselves with the monarchical cause. This created a popular royalism in the face of the republican project, which beyond the reductionist precepts of contemporary Hispanism and nationalism, shows the indigenous and Afro populations of Pasto as active and insurgent agents, and reformulates the binary paradigms of the wars of independence.
Copyright (c) 2024 Juan Camilo Argoti Gómez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2023 Doménica Rivera Suárez, Paula Gamboa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2023 Ana María Correa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2023 Carlos Eduardo Zapata González; María Emilia Noboa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Republic of Botswana, with its tangible prosperity in the achievement of wellbeing for its population after surmounting adverse challenges, constitutes a singularity in comparison to the pathways followed by other Global South countries, and therefore provides an interesting case for the analysis of the diverse factors that may positively contribute towards desired development paths. In that regard, this academic work exposes an assessment of these factors, their effect on the political, ethnocultural, economic, and legal aspects of the state, as well as the perceived influence they have on the desired outcome. Succinct recommendations are also provided based on the sources reviewed.
Copyright (c) 2023 Carlos Eduardo Zapata González https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
UNESCO declared education as a fundamental right to overcome inequalities and achieve a sustainable development. However, the pandemic caused by Covid-19 forced Government Administrations to implement emergency education plans to adapt their people to this new reality. Thus, Lenín Moreno’s Administration implemented a distance education program in response to the health emergency situation, which increased and made visible the barriers to education access in Ecuador. However, after the elections in 2021, Guillermo Lasso’s Administration proposed education as a fundamental pillar to be addressed in order to reduce the educational inequality gaps caused by the pandemic. This article seeks to analyze in a comparative context the impact of educational policies in both the Moreno and Lasso Administrations in relation to the educational scope in Ecuador.
Copyright (c) 2023 Andrea Poulette Silva Polo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
After the Second World War, Japan and its economy were crippled. The industrial power it once had was reduced to rubble, with millions of people left to live in precarious conditions. However, in just a matter of years, the Japanese economy began to re-emerge; local companies became multi-national corporations, and hundreds of high-quality ‘Made in Japan’ products began flocking Western markets. To the surprise of Western economists, researchers, and politicians alike, Japan began rivaling mature economies without implementing either pure Anglo-American laissez-faire or Soviet-style central planning. This was the work of the “developmental state”’, a set of regulatory economic policies oriented towards developing and protecting local industry. Other countries such as South Korea successfully implemented similar industrial policies during the Cold War. But is the “‘developmental state”’ success story an Asia-only phenomenon? In Latin America, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa envisioned a similar plan to develop and modernize the country according to his own, post-neoliberal and environmentally-centered concept of development. The purpose of this article is to compare Ecuador’s national development plans from 2007 until 2017 and the policy goals of the Japanese and Korean developmental states.
Copyright (c) 2023 David Sebastián Jiménez Varela https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Narration of Female Role in the Independence Process within Historiography
Historiography has allowed to diminish the writing and narration of women’s works throughout Latin American independence to the point of distorting their true purpose. The implications of a poorly researched or censored social science include perpetuating negligent standards. Through them, the mass reproduction of gender roles and stereotypes is not only confined to a misogynistic past but also continues in an ill-informed present. Today there are evident ruptures amongst sisterhood and social protest is constantly delegitimized, partly caused by a historiography biased in favor of female prudence and rectitude, causing a disconnection between privileged women and intersectional feminism.
Copyright (c) 2023 Pamela Andrea Realpe Saines https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Appropriation of the Body as a Territory
For a long time, the territoriality of the body has not been an attractive subject of study within the Academy. However, in recent years, this concept has become much more common within the field due to the fact that it has been incorporated to the recognition and defense of women’s rights. The purpose of this academic work is to examine the appropriation of the body as a territory in the context of Ecuador in such a manner that it can be demonstrated that “my body, my territory” is not simply a feminist struggle cry, but also a means of acknowledging the struggles against numerous types of violence suffered by female bodies in various historical, cultural, and religious contexts, among others. This was done in this paper through the critical geopolitics approach and will be exemplified by the rhetorical violence observed within the speeches of President Guillermo Lasso. It was concluded that, despite the feminist geopolitical struggle that exists within Ecuador, there are still those who normalize violence against women and minimize the feminist struggle against the appropriation of female fertile bodies.
Copyright (c) 2023 Doménica Bernarda Ledesma Muñoz, Mateo Alejandro Fierro Torres, María Emilia Medina Guevara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Afro communal territoriality in Esmeraldas: an imaginary at risk
The Afro/Black communal territory of the cantons of San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro, in Esmeraldas, has been an example of the resistance of this population since colonial times. The largely racialized and impoverished communities that inhabit these spaces went through long processes of defense against various attempts at territorial dispossession that allowed them, up to a certain point, to preserve their autonomy and collective tradition. However, the territorial imaginaries promoted by the nation-state and the international actors that promote extractivist development, currently represent a threat to the perceptions of communal belonging of these Afro populations. For that reason, this article argues that the struggle for the defense of these Afro communal territorialities is in danger and as a result these populations have become fragmented and their collective well-being has been threatened.
Copyright (c) 2022 Daniela Cárdenas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The International Monetary Fund and its adaptive capacity
Since its creation in the end of World War II, the International Monetary Fund has played an important role in the international economy and finance. But it has been the subject of innumerable criticisms that led to a crisis of legitimacy at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. These criticisms have been based on two key points: the infeasibility of the neoliberal ideology to alleviate state economic crises, and the lack of representation in the internal organization of the IMF. The purpose of this essay is to argue that the Fund, despite still having problems of legitimacy among states and social movements, has shown itself capable of making changes, both in its demands and in its internal organization, in line with international demands.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ismael Guerrero https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A civilizational change: decoloniality, transdiplomacy, and norm localization
Superiority and hegemony based on reasoning, economics, and eurocentrism as a permanent precept has been established by states and societies; in consequence, other philosophies, from Asian and Indigenous cultures, are deemed not applicable and capable of fulfilling the "objectives'' of all individuals. This conception's legitimacy has led to ignoring the "Other" and disregarding their wisdom; however, the “other” has remained latent by the localization of globalized norms to indigenous worldview. From a critical point of view, this paper analyzes the civilizational change made by indigenous actors to the generalized social norms of the West. It is affirmed that the Andean worldview has remained in social action through localized norms that have made it possible to resolve issues from non-traditional and collectivist perspectives. It has been silently co-opted by prioritizing Western philosophy.
Copyright (c) 2022 Fergie Tinoco Blacio, María Dolores Vázquez Hidalgo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Diverse relations, multiple realities: re-building the relation with nature through a relational lense
Beyond a doubt, discussions about the environment are on the rise. However, the analysis and the actions proposed to take care of the planet have usually been carried out with an anthropocentric purpose. As a consequence, the behavior patterns that led us to the current environmental situation continue to be repeated. Therefore, the following article questions this approach and proposes an alternative way of analyzing natural phenomena. It emphasizes that in order to rethink global ecological policies it is necessary to recognize the different ontological bases that expand the way of understanding the world. Thus, the article has as its starting point an overview of the current situation of environmental movements, followed by an introduction to the ontological field using a relational lens. In addition, a brief vision of Andean Philosophy and its relation with nature is presented as an example.
Copyright (c) 2022 Fernando Delgado Guerrero, María Gracia Cobo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0