Former Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow Steven Levitsky has been named faculty director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard (DRCLAS). The center brings together in a multidisciplinary fashion all the work that is being done at Harvard from the Law School to the Medical School to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It also has offices in Santiago de Chile, Brazil and Mexico to further the bridges of understanding among the Americas.
Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions. He has written or edited several books, including the best-selling author of How Democracies Die (with Daniel Ziblatt), Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way), Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America (with Gretchen Helmke), and The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (with Kenneth Roberts).
Levitsky, who became director on September 1, is the fourth faculty director of DRCLAS. He was preceded by John H. Coatsworth, Merilee Grindle and Brian D. Farrell.