Zara C. Albright

Research

As geopolitical competition between the United States and China intensifies, states around the world are developing new strategies to navigate a challenging external context. Latin America, a region with a complicated and divisive history with the United States, has emerged as a battleground over great power influence and access to coveted resources. My research agenda explores these dynamics from the perspective of Latin American states, examining the extent and limits of their agency vis-à-vis China and the United States.

My book project, “Between the Great Powers: South American Non-Alignment in an Era of US-China Competition,” describes and explains the region’s foreign policies in an increasingly tense geopolitical scenario. As part of my dissertation fieldwork, I conducted nearly 90 interviews with policymakers in Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador.

Approaches to Great Power Competition
  • Bridging the Pacific: Chile and Uruguay’s Positioning in the Face of China’s Rise (with Diego Telias). 2025. The Pacific Review.
  • Latin American Small States in the Belt and Road Initiative: Narrating Status Amidst US-China Tensions (with Tom Long and Diego Telias). Revise and Resubmit at the Cambridge Review of International Relations.
  • Securitizing China? How Discourse Shapes Latin American Foreign Policy in the Shadow of US-China Competition. Under Review. Presented at ISA 2024.
  • When the Big Dogs Fight: Small State Foreign Policies in Great Power Competition (book chapter). Presented at APSA 2024, ACPS 2024, ISA 2025.
Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations

My research has been generously supported by the Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship, the BU Global Development Policy Center, BU Center for Latin American Studies, and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future.