Date:
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Speaker: Bruno Paes Manso, Researcher, Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo (USP)
Discussant: José Cláudio Souza Alves, Full Professor, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
Moderated by: Yanilda María González, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Bruno Paes Manso, PhD in Political Science from the University of São Paulo (USP), is a journalist and researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo. He is the author of the books A República das Milícias (Militia Republic) – from death squads to the Bolsonaro era (2020) and A Guerra (War) – Rise of the PCC and the world of crime in Brazil (2018).
José Cláudio Souza Alves holds a degree in Social Studies from Fundação Educacional de Brusque (1983), a Master's degree in Sociology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (1989) and a PhD in Sociology from the University of São Paulo (1998). He is currently a professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. He has experience in the field of sociology, with an emphasis on urban violence, working mainly on the following topics: Baixada Fluminense, criminality, sociology of religion, catholic church, evangelical churches, socio-spatial segregation, death squads and militias.
Ilona Szabó is a civic entrepreneur and a globally recognized thought leader on issues of gun control, police violence, drug policy, and civic and climate action. She is the co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute – an independent think and do tank working at the intersection of research, new technologies, communication and public policy. The Institute is focused on public, digital and climate security and their consequences for democracy. Igarapé was ranked the number one social policy think tank in the world in 2019 and the top Brazilian Human Rights organization in 2018. It works with governments, the private sector, and civil society to co-design data-driven solutions to complex challenges.
Yanilda María González is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on policing, state violence, and citizenship in democracy, examining how race, class, and other forms of inequality shape these processes. González’s forthcoming book Authoritarian Police in Democracy: Contested Security in Latin America (Cambridge University Press), studies the persistence of police forces as authoritarian enclaves in otherwise democratic states, demonstrating how ordinary democratic politics in unequal societies can both reproduce authoritarian policing and bring about rare moments of expansive reforms. González received her PhD in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University. Prior to joining HKS she was an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. González previously worked at a number of human rights organizations in the US and Argentina, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, ANDHES, and Equipo Latinoaméricano de Justicia y Género.
Presented in collaboration with the Harvard University Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Pacto pela Democracia