Organized Crime, Corruption and Political Polarization in Latin America

Presentation by Willibald Sonnleitner, 2025-2026 research fellow at the Paris IAS, Senior Research Professor at El Colegio de Mexico, as part of the conference organised by the Sciences Po United Nations Association at Sciences Po Paris. 

Closed to the public.

Presentation

Drug trafficking networks, electoral manipulation, corrupted institutions — Latin America has long grappled with the entanglement of criminal economies and political life. But which comes first? Does polarization create the conditions for organized crime to thrive, or does organized crime itself fracture political systems from within?

SPNU and CINUP bring together three leading experts to explore these dynamics at their first joint conference:

David Weinberger — Research Advisor at MILDECA (French Prime Minister's Office) and founding member of the International Crime Observatory (ObsCI) at IRIS, specializing in illicit drug trafficking and the geopolitics of drugs.

Gabriel Feltran — CNRS Research Director at Sciences Po's Centre for European Studies, sociologist of crime and illicit economies, and principal investigator of the research project Cocaine Trafficking to France.

Willibald Sonnleitner — Senior Research Professor at El Colegio de México and Visiting Fellow 2025–2026 at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies, specialized in elections, political violence, and processes of democratization across Latin America. Former Visiting Professor at the Universities of Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard.

The conference will be held in English.

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