Where is the XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026 taking place?

The congress is scheduled to take place in the city of Quito, ECU.

What is the primary focus of the XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026?

The congress focuses on international relations and political science, providing a platform for academic exchange on global and regional dynamics in the South America region.

When does the XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026 occur?

The event is scheduled to run for several days in the fall.

XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026

Name: XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026
Start: 2026-10-20T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-24T00:00:00Z
Location: Quito

Oct 20–24, 2026Quito, EcuadorIn-person

Registration open

The XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026, hosted in Quito, ECU, serves as a significant academic gathering focused on international relations and political science. This event brings together scholars, researchers, and practitioners to discuss contemporary global challenges and regional dynamics. The congress aims to foster intellectual exchange and collaborative research, contributing to a deeper understanding of complex international phenomena.

Committees & topics

Topics
Narratives of the New World Order: Rethinking the Epistemologies of Power · Geopolitics of New Technologies · International Law, Human Rights and Gender · International Political Economy, Resources and the Environment · Foreign Policy and New Contexts · Epistemology and Methodology in International Studies · Dynamics of Globalization, Multilateralism and Regionalism · International Security, Transnational Organized Crime and Strategic Studies

Why it matters

This congress is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it provides a platform for disseminating cutting-edge research in international relations, offering new perspectives on pressing global issues. Secondly, by convening experts from various backgrounds, it facilitates interdisciplinary dialogue, which is essential for comprehensive problem-solving in a multipolar world. The discussions and presentations at the congress can influence policy debates and academic curricula, shaping future generations of diplomats and scholars.

Furthermore, the congress's focus on international relations in the context of South America highlights the region's growing importance in global affairs. It allows for a critical examination of how global trends intersect with regional specificities, offering insights that are often overlooked in more generalized international forums. The outcomes of such gatherings can inform regional strategies and strengthen collaborative efforts among South American nations.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes presented at the congress, participants should undertake thorough preparation. This includes reviewing recent literature on international relations theory and contemporary global challenges. A strong understanding of the political and economic landscapes of key global players, such as USA, CHN, RUS, and IND, will be beneficial. Additionally, familiarity with regional dynamics in South America, particularly concerning BRA, ARG, and COL, will enhance participation.

Delegates should consider preparing brief presentations or discussion points related to their areas of expertise, aligning them with the broader themes of the congress. Engaging with the concepts of What Is Stakeholder Mapping? and Dynamic Analysis can provide a robust framework for understanding the various actors and forces at play in international relations. Thinking critically about Hidden Stakeholders and Engagement Strategies will also enrich discussions on policy and diplomacy.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Ecuador

Host nation and a key voice in South American regional integration and international relations.

Role in topic

As the host country, ECU provides the geographical and cultural context for the discussions, often bringing a unique South American perspective to global issues. Its experiences with regional blocs and international partnerships will likely feature prominently in discussions.

Brazil

Major regional power with significant influence on South American and global affairs.

Role in topic

BRA's role as a leading economy and political actor in South America means its foreign policy and regional initiatives are central to understanding the continent's international relations. Its perspectives on trade, environmental policy, and security will be highly relevant.

United States

Global superpower with extensive diplomatic and economic ties to South America.

Role in topic

The USA's foreign policy towards South America, including its economic investments, security cooperation, and diplomatic engagements, significantly impacts the region's international relations. Discussions will likely touch upon the implications of US actions on regional stability and development.

China

Growing global power with increasing economic and political presence in South America.

Role in topic

CHN's expanding economic footprint and diplomatic initiatives in South America are reshaping traditional power dynamics. Its role in infrastructure development, trade, and resource extraction will be a key area of discussion regarding new international partnerships.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Narratives of the New World Order: Rethinking the Epistemologies of Power

The post-Cold War 'liberal international order' framed by U.S. primacy, Western institutions, and a universalizing language of democracy and markets has eroded since the 2008 financial crisis, the Iraq War's legitimacy losses, and the rise of China as a peer competitor. Scholars and policymakers increasingly speak of a 'multipolar', 'post-Western' or 'fragmented' order in which competing narratives — Beijing's 'community of shared future', Moscow's 'multipolarity', the Global South's calls for decolonization, and Washington's renewed great-power competition framing — coexist and clash. These narratives are not merely rhetorical: they shape how states justify alliances, sanctions, and interventions. Epistemologies of power — the assumptions about who produces legitimate knowledge about world politics — have come under sustained critique. Decolonial, feminist, and non-Western IR scholarship (from Latin America's autonomist tradition to Chinese 'tianxia' theorizing and African Ubuntu-inflected approaches) challenge the discipline's Eurocentric canon. Debates over 'Global South' agency, BRICS+ expansion, and the politics of categories such as 'developing world' or 'middle powers' illustrate how analytical vocabularies carry geopolitical weight. Today the question is whether a coherent successor order is emerging or whether the system is settling into durable contestation. The war in Ukraine, the Gaza conflict, U.S.-China rivalry, and reform debates at the UN, IMF, and World Bank are all being read through these competing narratives, making epistemology itself a terrain of strategic competition.

Key players

Geopolitics of New Technologies

Technology has become a primary axis of great-power competition. Since the mid-2010s, U.S.-China rivalry has crystallized around semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 5G/6G telecommunications, biotech, and space. Washington's CHIPS and Science Act (2022), successive export controls on advanced chips and lithography equipment, and allied coordination with the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea aim to deny Beijing access to frontier compute. China has responded with massive industrial subsidies, indigenous innovation drives, and dominance in critical mineral processing and clean-tech manufacturing. Beyond hardware, the governance of AI has moved rapidly onto the diplomatic agenda: the EU AI Act (2024), the Bletchley and Seoul AI Safety Summits, UN General Assembly resolutions on AI, and competing standard-setting at the ITU and ISO reflect a contest over rules. Cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, data localization, submarine cables, and the militarization of space (anti-satellite tests by Russia, China, India, and the U.S.) add further layers. Dual-use technologies blur civilian and military boundaries, complicating export-control regimes such as Wassenaar. The central question is whether the world is bifurcating into rival tech ecosystems ('splinternet'), or whether interdependence and shared safety risks — from AI misuse to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure — will force minimal common rules. Middle and emerging powers are increasingly seeking 'tech non-alignment' to avoid forced choices.

Key players

International Law, Human Rights and Gender

The modern human rights regime, anchored in the 1948 Universal Declaration and successive UN covenants, gradually incorporated gender concerns through CEDAW (1979), the 1993 Vienna Declaration's recognition that 'women's rights are human rights', the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security. International criminal law evolved in parallel: the ICTY and ICTR recognized sexual violence as a war crime, crime against humanity, and act of genocide, and the Rome Statute codified these advances. Despite normative progress, implementation remains deeply uneven. Backlash against 'gender ideology' has emerged across diverse regions — from restrictions on reproductive rights in the United States after Dobbs (2022), to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Uganda, Russia, and Hungary, to the Taliban's systematic erasure of Afghan women's rights, which Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands have moved to challenge at the ICJ under CEDAW. Conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Tigray, and Myanmar have generated renewed documentation of conflict-related sexual violence and gendered harms. Debates now focus on enforcement: the role of the ICC and universal jurisdiction, reparations frameworks, the inclusion of gender in climate and business-and-human-rights instruments, and contestation over the universality of rights versus cultural-relativist or sovereigntist claims.

Key players

International Political Economy, Resources and the Environment

The post-1945 liberal IPE order — Bretton Woods institutions, GATT/WTO, dollar centrality — is under pressure from successive shocks: the 2008 financial crisis, U.S.-China trade war from 2018, COVID-19 supply disruptions, the inflationary surge of 2021-2023, and the weaponization of finance after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 'De-risking', friend-shoring, industrial policy, and subsidy races (CHIPS Act, IRA, EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, China's Made in China 2025) mark a partial retreat from hyper-globalization. Resource and environmental politics are now inseparable from IPE. The energy transition has elevated critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths — into strategic commodities, concentrating attention on the DRC, Chile, Indonesia, Australia, and China's processing dominance. Climate finance commitments made at COP15 Copenhagen and reaffirmed at COP28 Dubai and COP29 Baku remain contested, with Global South demands for loss-and-damage funding, debt relief, and reform of multilateral development banks (the Bridgetown Initiative led by Barbados). Food and fertilizer shocks linked to the Ukraine war exposed the fragility of global commodity markets. The core dispute is how to reconcile decarbonization, development, and geoeconomic competition without entrenching new dependencies or a 'green protectionism' that excludes the Global South.

Key players

Foreign Policy and New Contexts

Foreign policy-making is being reshaped by overlapping disruptions: great-power competition, hybrid warfare, pandemics, climate-driven displacement, energy transitions, and the politicization of trade and technology. Traditional diplomacy now competes with summit diplomacy (G7, G20, BRICS+, SCO), minilateral coalitions (AUKUS, QUAD, I2U2), and ad hoc contact groups on Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan. Middle powers — Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Mexico — increasingly practice 'multi-alignment', simultaneously engaging Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels. Domestic politics intrudes more visibly: polarization, populism, and electoral volatility produce sharp policy reversals, as seen in shifts on Ukraine aid, climate commitments, and migration. New doctrines have proliferated — feminist foreign policies (Sweden until 2022, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Chile, Colombia), 'strategic autonomy' (France/EU), 'active non-alignment' articulated in Latin America, and India's 'multi-alignment'. Diaspora politics, cities, sub-national governments, and private actors (from Big Tech to mercenary networks) further complicate the state-centric model. The core question is how states design coherent foreign policies amid permanent crisis, domestic contestation, and a less predictable international system.

Key players

Epistemology and Methodology in International Studies

International Relations has long been marked by methodological pluralism and recurrent 'great debates' — realism vs. idealism, positivism vs. post-positivism, rationalism vs. constructivism. Since the 2000s, critical, decolonial, feminist, and practice-turn approaches have challenged the discipline's Anglo-American and state-centric core, while quantitative, computational, and experimental methods have expanded through advances in data availability, machine learning, and text-as-data techniques. The field now grapples with replication crises, ethical questions about fieldwork in conflict zones, and the politics of citation and knowledge production. Latin American IR has contributed distinctive traditions — dependency theory, autonomist thought (Puig, Jaguaribe), and contemporary work on 'peripheral realism' and 'active non-alignment' — that question the universality of Northern theorizing. Parallel efforts in African, Chinese, and Indian IR scholarship interrogate concepts such as sovereignty, security, and order. AI tools, big-data geopolitics, and open-source intelligence are also transforming how researchers study war, sanctions, and diplomacy. The central debates concern how to combine rigor and reflexivity, how to decolonize curricula and research agendas without abandoning analytical standards, and how to integrate new digital methods responsibly into the study of world politics.

Key players

Dynamics of Globalization, Multilateralism and Regionalism

After three decades of deepening globalization, indicators of trade, investment, and migration have plateaued or fragmented along geopolitical lines — a phenomenon variously described as 'slowbalization', 'deglobalization', or 'reglobalization'. The WTO's appellate body remains paralyzed since 2019, the UN Security Council is gridlocked over Ukraine and Gaza, and reform of the IMF, World Bank, and UNSC moves slowly despite the Pact for the Future (2024) and recurring Global South demands. Simultaneously, BRICS+ expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, signaling demand for alternative platforms. Regionalism has reasserted itself unevenly. The EU has deepened integration in defense, energy, and industrial policy in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine; ASEAN navigates South China Sea tensions; the African Continental Free Trade Area (operational since 2021) advances slowly; Latin American integration via Mercosur, the Pacific Alliance, and CELAC remains fragmented. Mega-regional trade deals such as CPTPP and RCEP, and 'connectivity' initiatives (Belt and Road, Global Gateway, PGI), compete to set rules. The core question is whether multilateralism can be revitalized through reform and minilateral complements, or whether the world is settling into rival regional blocs with thinner global rules.

Key players

International Security, Transnational Organized Crime and Strategic Studies

The international security landscape has shifted decisively from the post-9/11 counterterrorism paradigm toward renewed great-power competition, large-scale interstate war, and hybrid threats. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022), the Gaza war since October 2023, escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, and instability across the Sahel after a sequence of coups have stretched NATO, the UN, and regional security organizations. Nuclear risks have risen with Russian rhetoric, North Korean tests, Iran's enrichment progress, and the erosion of arms-control architecture (INF, Open Skies, New START's uncertain future). Transnational organized crime has expanded in scope and political influence. Fentanyl and synthetic-drug supply chains link China, Mexico, and the United States; cocaine production has reached record highs in Colombia, with violence spilling into Ecuador, which declared an 'internal armed conflict' in 2024. Illegal mining, environmental crime in the Amazon, human trafficking from the Darien Gap to the Mediterranean, ransomware ecosystems, and sanctions-evasion networks blur the lines between criminal and state actors. Strategic studies increasingly integrate cyber, space, AI-enabled autonomy, and gray-zone operations alongside classical deterrence. The central challenge is adapting security cooperation — alliances, UN peace operations, INTERPOL and FATF mechanisms — to threats that are simultaneously interstate, transnational, and technological.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Ecuador October 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026

Oct 20–24, 2026Quito, EcuadorIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Narratives of the New World Order: Rethinking the Epistemologies of Power · Geopolitics of New Technologies · International Law, Human Rights and Gender · International Political Economy, Resources and the Environment · Foreign Policy and New Contexts · Epistemology and Methodology in International Studies · Dynamics of Globalization, Multilateralism and Regionalism · International Security, Transnational Organized Crime and Strategic Studies

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Ecuador

Host nation and a key voice in South American regional integration and international relations.

Role in topic

Brazil

Major regional power with significant influence on South American and global affairs.

Role in topic

United States

Global superpower with extensive diplomatic and economic ties to South America.

Role in topic

China

Growing global power with increasing economic and political presence in South America.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Narratives of the New World Order: Rethinking the Epistemologies of Power

Key players

Geopolitics of New Technologies

Key players

International Law, Human Rights and Gender

Key players

International Political Economy, Resources and the Environment

Key players

Foreign Policy and New Contexts

Key players

Epistemology and Methodology in International Studies

Key players

Dynamics of Globalization, Multilateralism and Regionalism

Key players

International Security, Transnational Organized Crime and Strategic Studies

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for XI CONGRESO CIPRI 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Ecuador October 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

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Frequently asked questions