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...
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...
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...
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...
Speaker: David Altman, Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Luksic Visiting Scholar
Moderators: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University and Fran Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government, Harvard University
How do you limit the temptations and excesses of government chief executives in a democratic context? Theoretically, systems in which multiple people share executive power –collegial executives – might be one way to prevent abuses of power by leaders who concentrate authority...
Speaker: Hiram Ramirez-Rangel,Divisional Executive Vice-President and Co-Branch Manager of AXA Advisors, LLC, Puerto Rico
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University
Puerto Rico’s current financial and economic crisis is examined firstly by examining the geopolitical dynamics that once sustained its role as an American exclave, and which gradually changed, giving way to a period of decline in strategic importance. As its importance as exclave began to decline,...
Speaker: Kathryn Sikkink,Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government; Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University
Responsibility constitutes a thread running through a number of topical public policy subjects, including sovereignty-as-responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and common but differentiated responsibility within...
Speaker: Ben Ross Schneider, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT; Director of the MIT-Brazil Program
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University
Access to education in Latin America expanded rapidly in recent decades, but education quality still lags. To tackle the quality challenge, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Mexico, and some states in Brazil enacted in the 2010s ambitious and promising reforms, often in the face of fierce opposition, especially from teacher unions and...
Speaker: Susan Stokes, Chair, Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies; John S. Saden Professor of Political Science; Director, Yale Program on Democracy, Yale University
Speaker: Michael Shifter, President, Inter-American Dialogue
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University
By any standard, the 2017 presidential election in Honduras was a major setback for democracy. President Juan Orlando Hernández’s decision to run for reelection was fraught with constitutional problems. The electoral authorities mysteriously stopped counting votes when the opposition candidate was ahead. When counting resumed, Hernández was somehow in the lead. Calls from the Secretary...
Speaker: Martin Liby Troein, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, MIT
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University
Morales ascended the presidency in 2006 on promises of far-going change. In office since then, he has largely delivered: Writing a new constitution, nationalizing the hydrocarbons sector, and providing greater political and economic inclusion for Bolivia’s indigenous majority. But in contrast to counterparts in Venezuela and Ecuador, with which the Morales administration...
Speaker: Kenneth Roberts,Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University
Many scholars have drawn distinctions between left-leaning, so-called “inclusionary” populism in Latin America and right-wing “exclusionary” populism in Europe. The recent rise of left populisms in the aftermath of Southern Europe’s financial crisis, however, has strong parallels to the Latin American experience, and it casts doubt on any...
Speaker: Lorenza B. Fontana, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Weatherhead Scholars Program. Research Associate, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Politics and International Studies, Open University
Speaker: Belén Fernández Milmanda, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University
Belen will be presenting an advance of her dissertation which studies how rural elites organize to influence policy-making in Argentina, Brazil and Chile and explains why they have chosen different strategies of political participation.
Belén Fernández Milmanda is a fifth-year Ph. D. candidate at the Government Department. Before coming...
Speaker: Veronica Herrera, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut
Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University
The distance between the state and grassroots claims is long. To access the state territorial groups must overcome limited material resources education and time as well as public officials who dismiss them as illegitimate policymaking partners. This paper based on extensive field research examines the construction of advocacy networks for environmental...
Speaker: Susan Stokes, C
Speaker:...
Speaker: Lorenza B. Fontana, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Weatherhead Scholars Program. Research Associate, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Politics and International Studies, Open University
Speaker: Andrew Schrank, 
