Tuesday Seminar on Latin American Politics

Date: 

Tuesday, February 19, 2019, 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Room S250

"Homicidal Ecologies: Illicit Economies and Complicit States in Latin America"

Speaker:

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

Moderator:

Steven Levitsky, Faculty Associate; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global Populism/Challenges to Democracy. David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University; Harvard College Professor.

Contact:

Jillian Scales
jscales@fas.harvard.edu

Abstract:

Homicidal violence has spiked in Latin America’s contemporary democracies, with some countries claiming among the highest homicide rates in the world. Drawing on her recent book, Homicidal Ecologies, Yashar analyzes the region’s uneven homicide levels and maps out a theoretical agenda that analyzes the (historical and endogenous) relationship between illicit political economies; state incapacity and complicity; and organizational competition to control illicit territorial enclaves.