Zara C. Albright

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

• Latin American Small States in the Belt and Road Initiative: Narrating Status Amidst US-China Tensions (with Tom Long and Diego Telias). 2026. Available Open Access in the Cambridge Review of International Relations.
• Bridging the Pacific: Chile and Uruguay’s Positioning in the Face of China’s Rise (with Diego Telias). 2025. The Pacific Review.
• 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

• The Political and Pragmatic Determinants of Chinese Development Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2008-2019. 2025. Available Open Access in Latin American Politics and Society.
• Defining the Belt and Road: How Ideas and Interests Shaped Argentina’s Approach to the Initiative. 2025. Available Open Access in the Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional.
• China-Latin American and the Caribbean Economic Bulletins. (with various co-authors). Boston University Global Development Policy Center. Various years.
• How to Stop a Boom from Busting: A Policy-Oriented Research Agenda for Capitalizing on China’s Demand for Transition Materials in Latin America. (with Alex Clark, Juan Luis Dammert Bello, and Rebecca Ray). Boston University Global Development Policy Center. 2023.

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.