Andrea Freites

I am a PhD in Political Science (International Relations and Research Methods, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) and a researcher at the Millennium Nucleus on the Impacts of China in Latin America and the Caribbean (ICLAC).

My research sits at the intersection of global political economy, environmental governance, and China–Latin America relations. I study how host-country institutional frameworks shape the environmental performance of Chinese-owned firms in South America's extractive industries. My dissertation argues that regulatory fragmentation is not necessarily a weakness: under certain conditions, parallel institutional architectures act as redundant veto systems that contain the structural power of foreign capital more reliably than centralized ones.

My current research agenda extends this argument to the governance of strategic assets, examining how different institutional architectures — parallel, single-veto, or absent — affect states' capacity to contain foreign investment in the lithium sector. This work contributes to debates on veto player theory, institutional layering, and the comparative politics of investment screening.

I also serve as editorial assistant for the Revista de Ciencia Política at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.