Today's society faces challenges of great complexity. Some of these problems are the result of modern society's past successes (such as climate change, the aging of the population, the impact of robotization on the workforce, or disinformation), and that is why they have proven so difficult to solve. The policy approaches, concepts, and instruments have also exhausted their capacity to manage a rapidly evolving society that does not match the social context for which they were designed. Finally, our Enlightenment knowledge systems, driven by the forces of specialization, are also incapable of addressing these problems, since they were one of the main causes of the progress that has now become paradoxical.

To address current social challenges, it is necessary to integrate disciplines and experiment with new scientific approaches and methods, rather than rely on fragmented systems that created the problems in the first place.

This workshop will focus on a nascent attempt in Spain, linked to Cornell's Clinic Lab program, to use artificial intelligence for two purposes: for rigorous social research through interdisciplinary teams, and to address xenophobia, a social ill that has been growing rapidly in online settings.

Sergio García Magariño has a Ph.D. in Sociology with international recognition and is a specialist in education and social development. He is currently a lecturer (associate professor) at the Public University of Navarra and a researcher at its Institute for Advanced Social Research: I-Communitas. He is co-founder and director of the Institute for Global Knowledge, Governance and Development and associate researcher at the think tank Globernance, directed by Daniel Innerarity. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex, at Cornell University, Visiting Professor at the University College of Dublin, and Consulting Professor at Nur University in Bolivia. His research interests include processes of violent radicalization, mechanisms of collaborative governance, collective security, social and economic development, and issues related to the sociology of science and religion. These are reflected in some 85 academic articles and books. He is a regular contributor to written and audiovisual media. He was included in the catalogue of Thinking Heads 2020-2021, a communications consultancy, as one of the 100 new talented speakers in Spain. A sample of his production can be seen at sergarcia.es or at his website at the Public University of Navarra.

ECUADORCome visit a collaborative poster session featuring visiting students fromEcuador’s Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ)! Students fromCornell and USFQ will present their collaborative research on comparativeeducation policy related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) 4: Quality Education. Together, they’ve examined two of the sevenoutcome targets: elimination of all discrimination in education, andeducation for sustainable development and global citizenship in thecontext of the United States and Ecuador. Stop by anytime 3-4:30 pm to see what they’ve discovered! Email Dr. Julie Ficarra (jmf389@cornell.edu)with questions or to request accommodations.

An A.D. White Professors-at-Large keynote public lecture

Steven Levitsky (Harvard University; A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell) will present the keynote lecture, “The Crisis (and Resilience) of Global Democracy,” on Tuesday, March 18, at 4:30pm, Klarman Hall Auditorium. This event is open to all. A reception will follow in Klarman Atrium.

About the speaker: Steven 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. He is Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times Best-Seller and was published in 30 languages, and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. He has written or edited 11 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently working on a book on democratic resilience across the world.

Levitsky has written for New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The New Republic, and he has been a columnist for La Republica (Peru) and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil).

Levitsky visits Cornell as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large March 17-21.

Cosponsored by the Dept. of Government.