The 2015 Carleton College Gary Wynia Memorial Lecture, entitled "The Crisis of Political Representation in Latin America," will be presented on Friday, Feb. 27 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum by esteemed Cornell University professor Ken Roberts. A reception will follow Roberts' presentation. This event is free and open to the public.
Although democratic regimes in Latin America since the 1980s have been far more durable than the historical record would have predicted, the party systems that are presumed to be core representative institutions in these democratic regimes have often been fragile and unstable. Many observers speak of a “crisis of democratic representation” in the region.Variation in party system institutionalization is a product of economic crises and free market reforms of the 1980s and 90s in Latin America. Some patterns of market reform aligned and stabilized party systems, whereas other patterns of reform de-aligned party systems in ways that left them vulnerable to widespread social protest and electoral volatility.These different patterns of reform conditioned the political shifts to the left that occurred in most of the region in the aftermath to market liberalization, with some countries experiencing relatively moderate and institutionalized “left turns,” and others veering to the left behind more radical populist or movement-based alternatives in contexts where traditional party systems had collapsed.
Kenneth M. Roberts is Professor of Government at Cornell University and the Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. His teaching and research interests are focused on Latin American political economy and the politics of inequality, particularly the intersection between political parties, populism, and labor and social movements in the Andean region and the Southern Cone. He obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University, then taught at the University of New Mexico before joining the faculty at Cornell. His most recent work, Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era (Cambridge University Press, 2014), studies the transformation of party systems and political representation during the critical juncture of market liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s. He is also the author of Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford University Press, 1998), and the co-editor of The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), The Diffusion of Social Movements (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America: Societies and Politics at the Crossroads (Palgrave Macmillan 2009).
This event is sponsored by the Carleton College Departments of Political Science and Latin American Studies, with additional support from the Gary Wynia Memorial Lectureship endowment. Gary Wynia was the William R. Kenan Professor of Latin American Politics and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Carleton College. Deemed one of the world’s top experts on Argentinian politics, Wynia was consulted by numerous political leaders for his vast knowledge of Latin American politics, including U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He made several contributions to the literary genre of Latin American politics, including the book The Politics of Latin American Development (Cambridge, 1978), Argentina in the Post-war Era (New Mexico, 1978), and Argentina: Illusions and Realities (Holmes and Meier, 1986). Carleton College continues to honor Wynia for his contributions and strong leadership.
The Gould Library is located off College Street on the Carleton campus, and is also accessible via Highway 19 in Northfield. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4117.