Alvarado Mijangos, Carlos

Carlos Alvarado is a Visiting Research Fellow at UNU-CRIS. During his visiting research followship he will work under the supervision of Frank Mattheis within the Regions and Cities Governance Cluster. Carlos will primarily work on strengthening his doctoral research project by having access to library resources of UNU-CRIS, Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

Carlos' doctoral research focuses on the fact that the international community is currently in an era of momentous changes, coupled with the existence of frictions by certain powerful nations, which seek to maintain their regional or even global influence and leadership. This is the case of Russia, China and the United States, in a region as fragile, but at the same time as important as the Arctic. It should also be noted that alliances are the raw material of international politics, whether due to an alignment of interests, the convergence of shared values, or the existence of a common enemy or challenge – in this case it could be climate change or interest in the strategic resources of the Arctic region. The latter has generated greater competition to influence and position oneself in these latitudes, putting different factors at risk in terms of security.

Carlos Alvarado Mijangos has a Master's degree in International Relations by the ‘Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Xochimilco (UAM-X)’, specializing in Geopolitical issues with a particular interest in the Arctic region. During his Master's degree he had the honor of doing a research stay at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), collaborating on geopolitics and environmental projects at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS). This visit as a Visiting Research Fellow also served to gather material for his Master’s thesis: “Climate Change facing the Energy Geopolitics of the United States (2010-2015)”.

Carlos has been a participant and member of the Mexican Association of International Studies (AMEI in Spanish) since 2014 and has participated in various conferences as a speaker. He has also been a professor in the BA of International Relations at the ‘Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP)’, and in the BA of International Relations at the ‘Universidad Rosario Castellanos’ in Mexico City. During that experience, he realized the importance of working as an academic and researcher, and moved on to a PhD program. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Sciences, with an area of ​​specialization in International Relations, at the ‘Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Xochimilco (UAM-X)’, through a research entitled: “The Geostrategy of the United States and the Russian Federation in the Arctic: Hegemonic Competition and Conflict (2022-2024)”. After completing his thesis, he would like to develop special courses, such as relations between Russia and the West, NATO interests versus the interests of the European Union, relations between Russia and China regarding the Arctic, the importance of the Arctic for the European Union, and the participation of the United Nations in the face of tensions in the Arctic region.