Speaker: Rossana Castiglioni, Associate Professor of the Political Science School, Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile

Since the beginning of the late 1990s, Latin American countries made great advances in terms of equitable social policy. Access increased markedly across policy areas as well as levels of coverage and benefits. In analyzing the causes of this social policy shift, a large part of the literature has emphasized the relevance of the “left turn.” My research challenges dominant views regarding social policy development in Latin...

Speaker: Edmundo Jarquín

Edmundo Jarquín graduated with a law degree and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Chile. In Nicaragua he taught at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) and was one of the founders of UDEL, the democratic opposition movement led by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro against the Somoza dictatorship. He served in the FSLN government as Minister of External Cooperation (1981-84) as well as ambassador to Mexico (1984-88) and later Spain (1988-1990). He was a member of the Nicaraguan National Assembly (1990-1992)...

Speaker: Anthony Pereira, Director, King's Brazil Institute, King's College London 

The Brazilian state in the 21st century appears to be a curious combination of high and low capacity. For example, it collects roughly 35 percent of GDP in tax revenue and coordinates the commanding heights of the economy in the service of domestic industry and export promotion. It also has sophisticated agencies at the central level to administer social policy, and robust accountability institutions. But it appears to be a low capacity state when it comes to the...

Speaker: Candelaria Garay, Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Democracy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Candelaria Garay is a Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Democracy at the Kennedy School of Government. Her research focuses on social policy, collective action, and party politics in Latin America. She received a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her book, Social Policy Expansion in Latin...

Speaker: Gretchen Helmke, Professor of Political Science, University of Rochester

This paper introduces and analyzes an original dataset, Latin American Leaders on Trial, which examines the extended post-tenure legal fates of 119 Latin American presidents over the last three and a half decades. Because we can only observe whether, when, and for what crimes former leaders are charged, but not whether such crimes were actually committed, our analysis of whether the rule of law is functioning or being manipulated in any given case is limited in important...

Speaker: Ana De la O, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Ana Lorena De La O is associate professor of Political Science at Yale University, where she is affiliated with the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, the Institution of Social and Policy Studies, and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Her research relates to the political economy of poverty alleviation, clientelism and the provision of...

Speakers: Scott Mainwaring, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Brazil Studies, Faculty Co-chair of the Harvard Brazil Studies Program; Fernando Bizzarro, Graduate Student Affiliate, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University

Moderator: Steve Levitsky,  Professor of Government at Harvard University.  

After experiencing the world's largest corruption scandal and the country's worst economic crisis, Brazilians voted in what many have called "the most important elections since...

Speaker: Gustavo Flores Macías, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University

Moderators: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government and Fran Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government

Gustavo A. Flores-Macías is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University and the 2017-18 Democracy and Development Fellow at Princeton University. He is the author of After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2012) and editor of the volume The...

Speaker: Angelica Duran-Martinez, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Angélica Durán-Martínez is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science at Brown University, a B.A. from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and an M.A. from New York University. She is the author of “The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico” (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her...

Speaker: Flávia Piovesan, Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Catholic University of São Paulo

Latin America is characterized by high levels of exclusion and violence, in addition to democracies that are still in a consolidation phase. In this context, the Inter-American System can contribute to establishing human rights standards, offsetting national deficits and fostering a new power dynamic among social actors. It can play a transformative role in strengthening human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the region. The...

Speaker: David Altman, Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Luksic Visiting Scholar

Moderators: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University and Fran Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government, Harvard University

How do you limit the temptations and excesses of government chief executives in a democratic context? Theoretically, systems in which multiple people share executive power –collegial executives – might be one way to prevent abuses of power by leaders who concentrate authority...

Speaker: Julie Weaver, PhD candidate, Department of Government
Moderator: Fernando Bizzarro, PhD student, Department of Government; Graduate Student Associate, DRCLAS

Conventional academic wisdom holds that the carrot and stick of...

Speaker: Carlos Gervasoni, Associate Professor of Political Science, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Moderator: Fernando Bizzarro, PhD student, Department of Government; Graduate Student Associate, DRCLAS

Both democratic and not-very-democratic (or...

Speaker: Andrés Schipani, PhD in Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Fernando Bizzarro, PhD student, Department of Government; Graduate Student Associate, DRCLAS

The study analyzes the different redistributive strategies adopted by presidents...

Speaker: Ieva Jusionyte, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Social Studies
Moderator: Fernando Bizzarro, PhD student, Department of Government; Graduate Student Associate, DRCLAS

In the U.S.-Mexico border region, environmental emergencies – from...