Observatoire stratégique de l’Amérique latine

The Strategic Observatory on Latin America was launched at CERI in December 2021. This Observatory, a first in the French academic landscape, aims to foster academic reflection on "the blind spot of French diplomacy", to use historian Maurice Vaïsse's expression. Indeed, while the proportion of political science research devoted to Latin America has increased in recent years, the region remains an under-researched subject in terms of the interactions between politics and security, both in terms of State’s transformation and in terms of international issues. 

And yet, while the region has seen its place diminish in major international debates due to its multiple crises - economic crisis, leadership crisis, democratic crisis - it has become one of the main grounds for Sino-American strategic rivalry, given China's rise in power in the region. The Covid-19 pandemic has only reinforced this dynamic. Hence the importance of looking at long-term developments.

From this point of view, the research carried out over the last few years at CERI through OPALC has helped to clear the way for this research agenda, enabling us to gain the support of the French Ministry of Defence's Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (Direction générale des relations internationales et de la stratégie, DGRIS), which for the first time in its history decided to grant multi-year funding to such a project. Indeed, several doctoral theses dealing with the themes covered by the new Observatory have been carried out within the laboratory, notably on the question of mediation between organized crime, entrepreneurs, and the state in Mexico, and on the relationship between military power and policies to combat organized crime in Mexico and Brazil. In recent years, CERI has also regularly welcomed specialists in defense and security issues in Latin America; the resulting network will feed into the work of the Strategic Observatory. Finally, several researchers working on these issues have come to CERI to present their analyses as part of the monthly seminar organized by the Observatoire politique de l'Amérique latine et des Caraïbes (OPALC), Los Últimos Jueves.

The Observatory will publish several papers with the support of the Sciences Po Cartography Unit. Seminars and round tables will also be organized. The results of this work will be available on this page, in the form of documents or podcasts.

These studies and scientific events will focus on three main issues: Sino-American strategic rivalry, as well as the actions of other powers in Latin America (Russia, Turkey, Iran); the security tensions at work in the region and the factors generating vulnerabilities; the place of Latin America in the major international balances.

The aim of the Strategic Observatory is to contribute to a better understanding, in all their complexity, of the realities of a Latin America in the throes of change.