LASA’s greatest strength lies in our members, whose generosity and enthusiasm sustain our association. In this letter, I outline plans for LASA2026, related fundraising initiatives, governance matters, and challenges arising from the current historical juncture.
The LASA2026 Congress in Paris
There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the Call for Papers for LASA2026 in Paris. We received proposals from 6,200 unique submitters. The proposals included over 1,600 papers without panels, over 3,500 papers submitted within panels, over 70 sponsored European proposals, over 60 book presentations, eight featured sessions, three intersection panels, 57 section panels, 17 section roundtables, five workshops, a dozen invited panels, and four presidential panels. Roughly 40 percent of the submissions came from Latin America, 40 percent from North America, and the rest from Europe. This marks a significant increase in European participation in LASA.
For the 2025 calendar year, LASA has 9,814 members, of whom 7,380 renewed their membership just this year.[1] As a result, our association is in a strong position financially, and our membership numbers are robust. For the first time since the pandemic, LASA’s finances are in the black, and the next congress promises to be an historic opportunity to celebrate our 60th anniversary. The decision to hold the congress in person means that the experience will be more rewarding for those present, and the cost of providing technology for a hybrid event will be avoided.
The response reflects, inter alia, the attractiveness of Paris as a destination, the desire of our members to meet outside the United States, and the appeal of the theme “Republic and Revolution.” It also reflects a concerted effort to encourage European participation through partnerships. Coinciding with the Semaines de l’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes (SALC), LASA2026 will establish durable bridges with European colleagues and elevate the awareness of Latin America and the Caribbean in Europe.
I am grateful to the LASA2026 Program Committee—Juan Pablo Luna, Natalia Sobrevilla, and Adela Pineda Franco—for their dedicated efforts to assemble presidential and invited panels aligned with special tracks of the congress, to evaluate sponsored panels and roundtables, and to prepare dossiers for the LASA Forum. Although the call for papers is now closed, there is still time to organize additional special activities in Paris.
Participation in LASA is difficult for many members in countries experiencing economic austerity or cutbacks to higher education. To address this, we continue to provide a substantial travel grant program. We will also use the occasion of the congress in Paris to secure the resources that will allow us to remain sustainable so that we can continue to be relevant to our diverse membership, including future conferences in the region.
Fundraising
I am pleased to report that our fundraising efforts have benefited from the remarkable generosity of our members. The fundraising committee initially considered a gala dinner to coincide with the congress in Paris. Inspired by the way our Parisian colleagues routinely organize modest receptions in elegant settings, we opted instead for a cocktail reception in the highly symbolic Maison de l'Amérique latine.
The Maison was created in 1945-1946 by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the provisional government of Charles de Gaulle, to recognize the contributions of Latin American countries to the liberation of France in World War II. It is located on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in the 7th arrondissement, occupying two 18th century mansions, and it has exquisite gardens, magnificent salons, a cinema, and exhibition space.
To enable this fundraising cocktail reception, we approached life members with an appeal for help. The support has been overwhelming. People give for what they love—and our members love LASA. The generosity of donors puts us in a good position to approach institutional funders for additional support. Anyone who wishes to make a donation to LASA to support this fundraising initiative should contact me or the LASA Secretariat.
Strengthening Governance
Serving on the executive of any organization requires an understanding of how the organization works. As a student of politics, I am aware of the importance of informal institutions, the gap between rules and practices, and the need to exercise discretion and judgement when making collective decisions. I also appreciate the need to align our practices with the association’s constitution and bylaws.
The Executive
The Executive Council is our highest governing body. As the orientation guide for new elected members stresses, it is responsible for our professional identity, to ensure we have the resources to fulfill our mission, and to provide oversight and direction to the association’s affairs. It supports the executive director, monitors programs and services, protects our assets, and ensures compliance with the laws, while also upholding our own bylaws.
The Executive Council is our sovereign. The role of the President is to execute the policies and programs approved by the Executive Council. As such, the relationship between the President and the Executive Council is collegial. The relationship between the Executive Council and the permanent staff is much like the relationship between elected officials and public servants. When that relationship is positive and there is mutual trust, both sides benefit. Whereas the responsibilities of the Executive Council are programmatic and strategic, those of the staff are operational and managerial. The Executive Council has no role in the day-to-day operations of LASA, including the management of its employees, but it has a fiduciary duty and a responsibility to hold the leadership, both elected and staff, accountable.
Committees, Subcommittees, and Task Forces
It is essential that the Executive Council possesses the capacity to exercise its various roles vigorously and effectively. To that end, a key tool at our disposal is the standing committee, the ad hoc subcommittee (also sometimes called a task force). In convening committees, it is necessary that they be given an explicit mandate. According to Robert's Rules of Order, a “subcommittee's role is to handle specific tasks or aspects of a larger issue, preparing reports or recommendations for the full assembly or another committee. They operate within the scope defined by the parent body and cannot act independently.”
Site Selection Committee
A good example of the value of committee work is the subcommittee on site selection. The choice of a site for a future LASA is an example of an issue in which the elected officers of the association must work collaboratively with the administrative staff. Academics can exercise judgement in the determination of the kinds of sites that will excite and inspire our colleagues to participate in LASA, but the staff are in a better position to determine what sites are viable from an operational and logistical standpoint.
In the Executive Council meeting in June 2025, a subcommittee on site selection was created. This ad hoc body was tasked with assisting the Executive Council to work with the Secretariat to reach a decision on the selection of a site for LASA 2027. The subcommittee would make a recommendation to the Executive Council, which would have the final say. After its functions were completed and a site was selected in the September 2025 meeting of the Executive Council, the subcommittee would cease to exist.
The site selection committee, chaired by Vice President Gisela Zaremberg, worked conscientiously with fellow committee members, Julieta Suárez-Cao, Cristian Opazo, and Xochitl Bada, to determine the site for the next LASA in 2027. We will be pleased to announce the sites of LASA2027 and LASA2028 very soon. This decision is the result of a careful balancing act and thoughtful deliberation within the subcommittee. My sincere thanks to all who contributed to this exemplary process.
Governance Subcommittee
Another important subcommittee will be the “Task Force on Governance.” I have been asked by the Executive Committee to prepare terms of reference and a slate of nominees for this committee, which will advise the Executive Council on our policies and procedures, ensuring their transparency, institutional robustness, and alignment with the mission of LASA. This is largely a housekeeping exercise, but an important one. The committee will also study a new system of self-evaluation to reinforce the functioning of the Executive Council and improve how the President and the Executive Director are evaluated at the end of each presidential term. The members of this committee are María Eugenia Ulfe and José Edgardo Cal Montoya (members of the Executive Council), and Gerardo Otero (president 2021– 2022) and Mara Viveros-Vigoya (president 2019 – 2020).
Ways and Means Committee
I would be remiss to not acknowledge the invaluable advice and guidance of the Ways and Means Committee. This is a permanent committee composed of the Vice President, President, Past President, Treasurer, and Executive Director (ex officio). It has been a source of counsel, a crucial guide in the preparation of meetings with the Executive Council, and an indispensable mechanism of accountability. The Ways and Means Committee is a key feature of our collegial governance system.
Planning for the Future
As LASA re-emerges from post-pandemic deficits, there is much to be done to plan for the future. To that end, the Executive Council has asked me to strike an ad hoc committee to initiate a process of strategic and participatory planning. We will use the opportunity to reimagine the future of LASA. The role of this committee is therefore different from the Task Force on Governance. Whereas the former looks forward and outward, reimagining the future of LASA with the participation of all members who are interested, the latter looks backward and inward, focused on how we have developed our internal policies and procedures in the past and analyzing whether they require updating. Both are important, but they serve different purposes.
Troubled Republics
LASA is more than an annual international congress, but that does not mean that the congresses are unimportant. We know that major international conferences can have a catalytic impact on how we perceive and think about the world. Important intellectual movements have often been associated with conferences. Likewise, LASA’s congresses have had a major impact on a wide range of subjects, including critical perspectives on neoliberalism, dependency, colonialism, and postcolonialism, as well as feminist, decolonial, queer, Afro-descendant, and Indigenous perspectives. The most recent congress centered the body as a place of struggle and resistance in Latinx America.
The next Congress will not only celebrate 60 years of critical interventions in research and teaching on Latin America and the Caribbean, but it will also occur at a dangerous moment of history for democracy, liberalism, and republicanism. Many of the practices and institutions underpinning the rules-based international order and domestic arrangements based on representation, the rule of law, and human rights are at risk. The program committee believes that the time is ripe for a reassessment of our common republican inheritance, injecting new vitality into the revolutionary but incomplete transformations that have shaped Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world over several centuries. The current issue of LASA Forum, prepared in collaboration with Federico Rossi, is devoted to this proposition.
We dedicate this issue to the memory of a friend and colleague, Francisco “Paco” Durand Arp Nissen (1950-2023), an exceptional human being and a dedicated scholar who left an indelible mark on the study of Peru (see the essay in memoriam by Humberto Campodónico). A foundation has been created in his name.