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    2019 Apr 23

    The political origins of Mexico’s corruption

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Viridiana Rios, Ph.D. in Government, Harvard University

    Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

    In contexts where corruption is widespread, why do some incumbents choose to not be corrupt? My research argues that party loyalty is a major influence to reduce corruption and test this argument using fine-grained data of 12 billion dollars audited to 3,601 local incumbents over a period of 16 years. Contributing to an unsettled and vibrant...

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    2019 Apr 16

    Gone with the wind? Exploring Fujimorismo’s decay in contemporary Peru

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Alberto Vergara, Professor of Social and Political Sciences, Universidad del Pacífico (Lima, Peru)

    Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

    Political parties are usually depicted as indispensable for democracies. However, Latin American history does not lack of instances of parties playing against democracy. Observing the case of Fuerza Popular (the Peruvian Fujimorista party) will allow us to analyze the ways how a political vehicle might...

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    2019 Apr 09

    Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies (book presentation)

    12:00pm to 2:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S030, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: María Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University

    Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

    This book focuses on the non-policy benefits that voters consider when deciding their vote. In addition to proposing policies, parties deliver non-policy benefits, such as competent economic management, constituency service, and patronage. This book provides a unified view of how politicians...

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    2019 Mar 12

    Voting for Victors: Why Violent Actors Win Postwar Elections

    12:00pm to 2:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Sarah DalyThis project seeks to understand political life after episodes of mass violence. After suffering wartime atrocities and winning peace, millions of people around the world elect to live under the rule of political actors with deep roots in the violent organizations of the past. This book analyzes why citizens vote for...

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    2019 Feb 26

    Venezuela: Understanding the Crisis. Building a Sustainable Solution

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S020, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Temir Porras Ponceleon, CEO, Ventuari Partners

    Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

    Temir Porras Ponceleon began his public service career in the Republic of France and continued in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He specialized in foreign policy, sovereign credit, and oil. He has brokered and negotiated political and trade deals at the presidential level for more than 10 years in Latin...

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    2019 Feb 05

    Justice Beyond the Final Verdict: The Sepur Zarco case and the aftermath of court-ordered reparations in transitional justice cases in Guatemala

    12:00pm to 2:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Irma Velasquez Nimatuj HeadshotSpeaker: Irma Velásquez Nimatuj,Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies, Brown University

    Moderator:  Steven Levitsky, Professor of...

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    2018 Nov 27

    Expanding Social Policy Equity in Latin America (1990-2013)

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Rossana Castiglioni, Associate Professor of the Political Science School, Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile

    Since the beginning of the late 1990s, Latin American countries made great advances in terms of equitable social policy. Access increased markedly across policy areas as well as levels of coverage and benefits. In analyzing the causes of this social policy shift, a large part of the literature has emphasized the relevance of the “left turn.” My research challenges dominant views regarding social policy development in Latin...

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    2018 Nov 20

    Crisis en Nicaragua: Causas y siguientes pasos

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Edmundo Jarquín

    Edmundo Jarquín graduated with a law degree and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Chile. In Nicaragua he taught at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) and was one of the founders of UDEL, the democratic opposition movement led by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro against the Somoza dictatorship. He served in the FSLN government as Minister of External Cooperation (1981-84) as well as ambassador to Mexico (1984-88) and later Spain (1988-1990). He was a member of the Nicaraguan National Assembly (1990-1992)...

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    2018 Nov 13

    Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Brazilian State Formation in Comparative Perspective

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Anthony Pereira, Director, King's Brazil Institute, King's College London 

    The Brazilian state in the 21st century appears to be a curious combination of high and low capacity. For example, it collects roughly 35 percent of GDP in tax revenue and coordinates the commanding heights of the economy in the service of domestic industry and export promotion. It also has sophisticated agencies at the central level to administer social policy, and robust accountability institutions. But it appears to be a low capacity state when it comes to the...

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    2018 Nov 06

    Labor Unions and Social Movements in Unequal Democracies

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Candelaria Garay, Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Democracy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

    Candelaria Garay is a Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Democracy at the Kennedy School of Government. Her research focuses on social policy, collective action, and party politics in Latin America. She received a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her book, Social Policy Expansion in Latin...

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    2018 Oct 30

    Draining the Swamp? Partisan Bias in the Prosecution of Former Latin American Leaders

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Gretchen Helmke, Professor of Political Science, University of Rochester

    This paper introduces and analyzes an original dataset, Latin American Leaders on Trial, which examines the extended post-tenure legal fates of 119 Latin American presidents over the last three and a half decades. Because we can only observe whether, when, and for what crimes former leaders are charged, but not whether such crimes were actually committed, our analysis of whether the rule of law is functioning or being manipulated in any given case is limited in important...

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    2018 Oct 23

    Can Access to Information Increase Community Monitoring & Service Provision? Evidence from a School Intervention in Mexico

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Ana De la O, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University

    Ana Lorena De La O is associate professor of Political Science at Yale University, where she is affiliated with the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, the Institution of Social and Policy Studies, and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Her research relates to the political economy of poverty alleviation, clientelism and the provision of...

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    2018 Oct 16

    The 2018 Elections in Brazil

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S020, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speakers: Scott Mainwaring, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Brazil Studies, Faculty Co-chair of the Harvard Brazil Studies Program; Fernando Bizzarro, Graduate Student Affiliate, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University

    Moderator: Steve Levitsky,  Professor of Government at Harvard University.  

    After experiencing the world's largest corruption scandal and the country's worst economic crisis, Brazilians voted in what many have called "the most important elections since...

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    2018 Oct 02

    Changing Course? Understanding Mexico's 2018 Election

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Gustavo Flores Macías, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University

    Moderators: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government and Fran Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government

    Gustavo A. Flores-Macías is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University and the 2017-18 Democracy and Development Fellow at Princeton University. He is the author of After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2012) and editor of the volume The...

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    2018 Sep 25

    Colombia's 2018 Elections: Implications for the Peace Process and Criminal Dynamics

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Angelica Duran-Martinez, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

    Angélica Durán-Martínez is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science at Brown University, a B.A. from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and an M.A. from New York University. She is the author of “The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico” (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her...

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    2018 Sep 18

    Human Rights and Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Impact of the Inter-American System

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street

    Speaker: Flávia Piovesan, Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Catholic University of São Paulo

    Latin America is characterized by high levels of exclusion and violence, in addition to democracies that are still in a consolidation phase. In this context, the Inter-American System can contribute to establishing human rights standards, offsetting national deficits and fostering a new power dynamic among social actors. It can play a transformative role in strengthening human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the region. The...

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