Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall

Professor Valpy FitzGerald, St Antony's College, gives a talk for the Latin American Centre series.

Dr Covadonga Meseguer, London School of Economics, gives a talk for the Latin American Centre series.

Professor Alan Knight give a seminar for the Latin American Centre series.

Malcolm Deas, University Lecturer in the Politics and Government of Latin America, University of Oxford and Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford (from 1966 to 2008). Gives a talk on Colombia: Peace and History.

On Thursday, 1st May, 5pm Daniel Ortega, Senior Research Economist, CAF Development Bank of Latin America Presented the CAF 2013 Report “Enhancing Productivity in Latin America: from Subsistence to Transformational Entrepreneurship”. The CAF Economics and Development Report 2013 emphasizes the role of entrepreneurship as a key factor to Latin America’s development. It does so in a comprehensive way, reviewing not only the impediments for innovative entrepreneurs to realize their projects, but also the reasons why entrepreneurs with less potential opt for entrepreneurial activities instead of a salaried job. One of the report’s main messages is that these two phenomena –constrained growth for dynamic companies and abundance of subsistence entrepreneurs—are closely linked. Recognizing this link is crucial to design entrepreneurship policies which need to adopt a multidimensional approach, integrating things like entrepreneurial talent, innovation fostering, access to finance, and labor training.

On March 7th, Professor Nicola Miller and Dr Adam Smith from the University College London gave a lecture on the historical relations between the United States of America and Latin America. They offer a historiography of the images of the US in Latin America. This class was offer in collaboration with the Rothermere American Institute.

On February 28th, Dr James Melton from the University College London presented his recent findings of a research project producing a cross-national historical dataset of written constitutions. Here, he explains the origin and usage of writing rights in early Latin American constitutions.

On February 21st, Dr Roddy Brett from the University of St Andrews discussed the consequences of the violence during the regime of Rios Montt. In spotlighting the recent trial, he explores today's post-conflict legacy.

On Februrary 14th, Dr Par Engstrom from the University College London gave a lecture on recent developments in transitional justice in Brazil. He particularly focussed on the relation between Brazilian postr-transitional justice and the Inter-American Human Rights System.

Dr Gian Luca Gardini (University of Bath) gives a talk foe the Latin American Centre seminar series On Friday 7th February 2013, Dr Gian Luca Gardini (University of Bath) gave a lecture on regionalism in Latin America. In his talk, he develops his idea of modular regionalism and seeks to address two questions: To which extent can the latest wave of regionalism be characterised as modular regionalism? And how can we explain Latin American regionalism with the help of this concept?