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This event is hybrid. To register for the online session, click here.
Speakers: Rachel A. Schwartz, Assistant Professor of International and Area Studies, University of Oklahoma; Carlos Mendoza, Academic Coordinator of Diálogos; Claudia Méndez Arriaza, Journalist
Moderated by: Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, PhD candidate in the Department of Government, Harvard University; Graduate Student Associate, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Panelists will share their main takeaways from Guatemala's election, especially with regards to what the electoral process might reveal about the current state and future prospects of democratic institutions in the country.
Rachel A. Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on the legacies of armed conflict, statebuilding, corruption, and human rights in Central America. Her book Undermining the State from Within: The Institutional Legacies of Civil War in Central America was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2023, and the dissertation on which it is based was awarded the 2020 Gabriel A. Almond Award for the best dissertation in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association (APSA). During the 2019-2020 academic year, Dr. Schwartz was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR) at Tulane University.
Carlos Mendoza is a Guatemalan academic and public servant. He holds two Master's degrees in Political Science, one from the University of Notre Dame and another from Stanford University. Currently, Mendoza serves as the Academic Coordinator of Diálogos, a public policy think tank. He has previously held roles as the Coordinator of the Regional Observatory on Violence at Diálogos and as the Director of Fiscal Evaluation at the Ministry of Public Finances of Guatemala. Additionally, he has taught at various institutions, including Universidad Landívar, Universidad Marroquín, and FLACSO-Guatemala. Mendoza is a co-founding member of Movimiento Semilla, a political party that advocates for anti-corruption measures. The party is an important actor in this year's election campaign, working to address democracy issues in Guatemala.
Claudia Méndez Arriaza has been an investigative reporter in Guatemala for 20 years.
Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government. His research examines contemporary challenges to democratic institutions in Latin America, with a focus on Central America and Mexico. His dissertation explores the causes and consequences of efforts by criminal organizations to influence elections. He is a 2022-23 USIP and Minerva Peace and Security Scholar and a graduate of the University of Oxford and Harvard College. Manuel was born and raised in El Salvador.
Presented in collaboration with Weatherhead Institute for International Affairs