Date:
Location:
This event is hybrid. To register for the online session, click here.
Speakers:
Maria Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University; Ernesto Calvo, Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland; Ezequiel Gonzales Ocantos, Associate Professor in the Qualitative Study of Comparative Political Institutions, University of Oxford.
Moderated by Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
About the Speakers
Maria Victoria Murillo is the author of Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America, which was translated as Sindicatos, Coaliciones Partidarias y Reformas de Mercado en América Latina by Siglo XXI Editores and Political Competition, Partisanship, and Policymaking in the Reform of Latin American Public Utilities. She is also the co-author of Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies with Ernesto Calvo (Cambridge University Press 2019) and Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions (Cambridge University Press, Element in Latin American Politics and Society Series, 2019) with Daniel Brinks and Steven Levitsky. She is also the co-editor of Understanding Weak Institutions: Lessons from Latin America ( Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2020), Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness (Penn State University Press 2005), Carreras Magisteriales, Desempeño Educativo y Sindicatos de Maestros en América Latina (Flacso, 2003), and Discutir Alfonsín (Siglo XXI, 2010). Her work has also appeared in International Organization, World Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, the Annual Review of Political Science, and many Latin American academic journals. Murillo's research on distributive politics in Latin America has covered labor politics and labor regulations, public utility reform, education reform, agricultural policies, and economic policy more generally. Her more recent work focuses on electoral behavior, contentious dynamics, and the analysis of institutional weakness. Her empirical work is based on a variety of methods ranging from quantitative analysis of datasets built for all Latin American countries to qualitative field work in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela and survey and experiments in Argentina and Chile.
Dr. Ernesto Calvo is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Lab for Computational Social Science (iLCSS) and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. His research centers on the study of comparative political institutions, social media, political representation, and social networks. His work lies at the intersection of big data, survey experiments, and institutions. He is the author of a number of books on comparative institutions and social media, including Non-Policy Politics: Rich Voters, Poor Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies (Cambridge University Press 2019) with María Victoria Murillo; Legislator Success in Fragmented Congresses in Argentina (Cambridge University Press 2014); and Fake News, Burbujas, Trolls y Otros Encantos: Cómo funcionan (para bien y para mal) las redes sociales (Siglo XXI Editores 2020) with Natalia Aruguete. Professor Calvo has authored over 70 publications in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. His research has been recognized by the American Political Science Association with the Lawrence Longley Award, the Luebbert Best Article Award, and the Michael Wallerstein Award.
Ezequiel Gonzales Ocantos is an Associate Professor in the Qualitative Study of Comparative Political Institutions in the Department of Politics and International Relations, and a Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College. In 2018 Ocantos received the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Politics and International Relations. His primary research agenda is in the field of comparative judicial politics, with a regional focus on Latin America. He has written about judicial behaviour and strategic litigation in human rights cases, transnational judicial dialogue in the Inter-American Human Rights System, and the relationship between courts and public opinion. He is the author of Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Politics of Transitional Justice In Latin America: Power, Norms and Capacity Building (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His first book won the Herman Pritchett Best Book Award from APSA's Law and Courts Section, the best book award from ISA's Human Rights Section, and the Donna Lee Van Cott Best Book Award from LASA's Political Institutions Section. I am currently working on a new project that examines the causes and consequences of anti-corruption judicial crusades in Latin America. In addition to this work on courts, he has written chapters and articles on the political economy of vote buying and electoral intimidation, and also on qualitative methods. My articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Law & Society Review, and Sociological Methods & Research, among others.
Steven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times Best-Seller and was published in 25 languages. He has written or edited 12 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022), and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point (with Daniel Ziblatt) (Crown Publishers, 2023). He and Lucan Way are currently working on a book on democratic resilience across the world.
Presented in collaboration with Weatherhead Institute for International Affairs
