Speaker: Viridiana Rios, Ph.D. in Government, Harvard University

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

In contexts where corruption is widespread, why do some incumbents choose to not be corrupt? My research argues that party loyalty is a major influence to reduce corruption and test this argument using fine-grained data of 12 billion dollars audited to 3,601 local incumbents over a period of 16 years. Contributing to an unsettled and vibrant...

Speaker: Alberto Vergara, Professor of Social and Political Sciences, Universidad del Pacífico (Lima, Peru)

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

Political parties are usually depicted as indispensable for democracies. However, Latin American history does not lack of instances of parties playing against democracy. Observing the case of Fuerza Popular (the Peruvian Fujimorista party) will allow us to analyze the ways how a political vehicle might...

Speaker: María Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

This book focuses on the non-policy benefits that voters consider when deciding their vote. In addition to proposing policies, parties deliver non-policy benefits, such as competent economic management, constituency service, and patronage. This book provides a unified view of how politicians...

Speaker: Eduardo Viola, Professor of International Relations, University of Brasilia; Senior Researcher of the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government...

This project seeks to understand political life after episodes of mass violence. After suffering wartime atrocities and winning peace, millions of people around the world elect to live under the rule of political actors with deep roots in the violent organizations of the past. This book analyzes why citizens vote for...

Speaker: Peter Johannessen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

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Speaker: Temir Porras Ponceleon, CEO, Ventuari Partners

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

Temir Porras Ponceleon began his public service career in the Republic of France and continued in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He specialized in foreign policy, sovereign credit, and oil. He has brokered and negotiated political and trade deals at the presidential level for more than 10 years in Latin...

Speaker: Deborah Yashar, Professor of Politics & International Affairs, Princeton University; Editor of World Politics

Moderator: Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University

Speaker: Irma Velásquez Nimatuj,Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies, Brown University

Moderator:  Steven Levitsky, Professor of...

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...