“Smart city” development has become a fashionable policy and research topic. A growing number of central and local governments in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, in partnership with companies from diverse sectors (construction, transport, energy, water, etc), consulting firms, NGOs and experts, are now developing smart-city-related projects. 

When I was laying the foundations for the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri)1 in 1978 and 1979, only a select few in France were familiar with the English term “think tank” and had at least an approximate idea of what it covered.

This term has become fashionable but still has no consensual definition.

The French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) celebrated its 40^th anniversary in the spring of 2019, in a completely different environment to when it was founded, which was dominated by the competition between the two “superpowers” of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR).

Digital power refers to any actor’s ability to exploit digital data to help influence the behavior of other actors on the international stage and to achieve its own ends. It is about understanding how it influences events in the real world, despite its “intangible” nature.

Restrictive measures are a major instrument of the European Union (EU)’s external action, which has emerged as one of the world’s leading sanctions emitters. The EU has thus leveraged the size of its market and its economic and financial clout (trade relations, aid policy and bilateral agreements).