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Speaker: Alisha Holland, Associate Professor of Government Department, Harvard University
Moderated by: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Spending on large infrastructure projects increased across Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s, just as countries transitioned to democratic elections, decentralized political power, and saw political parties weaken. Why did presidents invest in infrastructure projects that wouldn’t be done during their time in office? And when did these projects serve to improve economic growth and social welfare?
Alisha Holland is an Associate Professor (untenured) in the Government Department at Harvard University. Before joining the Harvard faculty, she was an Assistant Professor in the Politics Department at Princeton University and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. She studies the comparative political economy of development with a focus on urban politics, social policy, and Latin America. Her book, Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics), looks at the politics of enforcement against property law violations by the poor, such as squatting, street vending, and electricity theft. Her current book project focuses on the politics of large infrastructure projects in Latin America. Her other research interests include law, migration, crime control, and subnational governance. Her articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Latin American Research Review, Perspectives on Politics, and World Politics. Holland hold an AB from Princeton University (2007) and a PhD from Harvard University (2014).
Steven Levitsky is the Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. As the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government, his research focuses on democratization, authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions. He is author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018), a New York Times Best-Seller that has been published in 25 languages, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge, 2010), and Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, 2003), and co -editor of Informal Institutions and Democracy in Latin America (with Gretchen Helmke) and The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (with Kenneth Roberts). He has written frequently for the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Vox, The New Republic, The Monkey Cage, La República (Peru) and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil). He is currently writing a book (with Lucan Way) on the durability of revolutionary regimes. Levitsky received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
Presented in collaboration with Weatherhead Center for International Affairs