Emerging Countries and the « Return of Geopolitics » - Economic and Geopolitical Cross-Sectional Perspectives : Tanzania, Colombia, Kazakhstan

Paris, France

Context

In 2014, the deceleration of global growth trends revealed wide disparities between emerging countries. While the big emerging countries face a decline in their growth potential, smaller ones continue to show resilience and drive in what seems to be a difficult international grid.

The year 2014 also brought along some international tensions, leading to a discursive shift entailing a "return of geopolitics" perspective, which in other words explains a return to classical power politics. This consequently questions, both directly and indirectly, the established order, and explains the scope and context of the respective crises, though these vary by region. 

Description

Against this backdrop, the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and OCP Policy Center launched in 2014 the “IFRI-OCP Policy Center Roundtables” to analyze the nature of the link between development challenges and the emergence of the "return of geopolitics" approach. These series of roundtables, which take place biannually, bring together researchers, and public and private sector experts interested in the challenges and opportunities of economic development in the face of an ever-changing geopolitical order.

The objective of this conference is to examine the link between economic development on the one hand, and challenges of the "return of geopolitics" on the other, as both of these respective stances hold important ground while explaining the existence of developing countries in a complicated world order. This will enable a juxtaposition of these two perspectives, while addressing both large emerging countries and smaller, less obvious ones that, by definition, may not have the same objectives.

Speakers will be consequently working on both levels, contributing to a better understanding of development and its implications. The methodological interest lies in the intersection of economic and geopolitical approaches to better discern the nature of the trends and try to identify points of logical dissonance.

The first edition of this event, which took place in December 2014 in Rabat, Morocco, discussed China, Russia, Turkey and Morocco. The second edition was held in May 2015 in Paris, France and addressed the cases of Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Brazil, and Indonesia. The third edition, which took place in Rabat, Morocco, tackled the cases of Ethiopia, South Africa, DRC, Mexico, India, and Vietnam. For our fourth edition in Dakar the following countries have be addressed: Senegal, Malaysia, Kenya, Argentina, Egypt and Angola. Our fifth and final edition will be introduced by a methodology panel on the return of geopolitics and address the cases of Tanzania, Thailand, Colombia and Kazakhstan.