Democratic Governance in Latin America

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Brief biograhies of the participants can be found here.

José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, will be the keynote speaker at Kellogg Institute conference aimed at examining why democracy continues to struggle in Latin America and how these challenges can be overcome.

Titled “Democratic Governance in Latin America,” the conference will be held Oct. 7-8 in the Hesburgh Center Auditorium; Insulza’s keynote address will be October 7 at 4:45 p.m.

Insulza brings important perspective on the growth and sustainability of democracy in Latin America. He was a political science professor in Chile until 1973, when he went into exile after the military coup and the rise of General Augusto Pinochet. Insulza returned in 1988, after which he held a number of offices in the Chilean government, most recently as Chile’s Minister of the Interior.

After a wave of democratization beginning in the 1980s, democracy in Latin American has never seemed more precarious and public support for it continues to wane. In Guatemala and Brazil, as much as two-thirds of the population does not believe that democracy is the most preferable form of governance. Moreover, the majority of Latin Americans are poorer now than they were in 1996.

“The conference will explore how Latin American governments can maintain a high quality of democratic practice, help their countries advance economically, and combat social problems caused by poverty,” explained Scott Mainwaring, director of the Kellogg Institute.

Rather than focus on each area separately, the conference aims to look at the three concerns together, added Rev. Timothy R. Scully, CSC, professor of Political Science and the conference co-organizer.

“Intellectually, we believe that it is imperative to analyze the interactions among them in order to draw practical lessons for decision-makers,” Scully said. “By studying this, we hope to shed light on what policies and institutions are most likely to foster success.”
The conference will draw distinguished academics and policy makers from the US, United Kingdom, Venezuela and Costa Rica, including: Jose De Gregorio, vice governor of the Central Bank of Chile; Mitchell A. Seligson, founder of the Latin American Public Opinion Project; Joan M. Nelson, Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution; and Alan Angell, University Lecturer in Latin American Politics at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford.