The Origins of Democracy in South America

This event will be hybrid. To register for the online session, click here.

Speaker: Raul L. Madrid, Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin
Moderated by: Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, PhD candidate in the Department of Government, Harvard University; Graduate Student Associate, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

This talk examines why democracy arose in some South American countries and not others at the outset of the 20th century.

Raúl L. Madrid is the Harold C. and Alice T. Nowlin Regents Professor of Liberal Arts in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a specialist in Latin American politics with research interests in democratization, political parties, ethnic politics, and social policy. He is currently working on a book on the origins of democracy in Latin America, and is the author of The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America (Cambridge, 2012) and Retiring the State: The Politics of Pension Privatization in Latin America and Beyond (Stanford, 2003). He is a co-editor of When Democracy Trumps Populism: European and Latin American Lessons for the United States (Cambridge, 2020), and Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings (Cambridge, 2010). His articles have appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Democratization, Electoral Studies, Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Latin American Research Review, Political Science Quarterly, Political Studies, and World Politics, among other journals. He received his B.A. from Yale College and his M.A. and Ph.D from Stanford University.

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 Center for International Affairs