Latin American and Caribbean Studies
New TodoSomos Archive
Venezuelan Migrant Testimonies Available to Researchers at Cornell
A campus symposium brings together stakeholders and launches the new collection, with support from LACS and Migrations.
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Mexico Warns Against Potential U.S. Drone Strikes on Cartels
Gustavo Flores-Macías, LACS
“Unilateral U.S. strikes on Mexican soil would be devastating for the bilateral relations and could be detrimental to the objective of fighting drug cartels,” says Gustavo Flores-Macías, professor of government.
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Trees Capture Toxic Fingerprint of Gold Mining in the Amazon
Jacqueline Gerson, LACS
Jacqueline Gerson, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering, discusses mercury pollution accumulated in trees.
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How COVID Changed Latin America
Gustavo Flores-Macías in World in Focus
Gustavo Flores-Macías (LACS) coauthored a Journal of Democracy article that looks at examples from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, and Peru to explore why some political systems fared better.
“The emergency left room for political agency and the framing of innovative solutions to governance challenges. While the pandemic did see increases in political corruption, opportunism among leaders, human-rights abuses, militarization, and economic hardship, there has also been an upside.”
COVID-19 was a stress test for democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the January article.
Pandemic death tolls and socioeconomic effects in the region were among the worst in the world. Measures adopted to contain the virus gave corrupt leaders cover to consolidate power—with power grabs, militarization, human rights abuses, and pandemic denial documented across the region.
The effects were not uniformly negative, however, the article argues: “The pandemic also prompted renewed economic crisis management, social mobilization, and local checks to central power.”
Successful national and local responses to the pandemic offer some hopeful evidence of democratic resilience. Protests became more common and influential during the pandemic as “voters and social movements mobilized to protect human rights and contest inequitable reforms.” New openings for political challengers will shape the coming decade of governance in the region, the article predicts.
“The COVID pandemic's effects are still putting strain on democracy and governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. The closing of civic space and the rise of corruption, citizen insecurity, political discontent, and populist power grabs are ongoing trends,” Flores-Macías and his coauthors conclude. “Yet pandemic-era repression and backsliding could have been worse, which suggests that democratic systems and norms in Latin American may be stronger than many thought.”
Gustavo Flores-Macías is a steering committee member and past director of Einaudi's Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. He is a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy.
Featured in World in Focus Briefs
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New Todosomos Archive
Venezuelan Migrant Testimonies Available to Researchers at Cornell.
A Landmark Decision for Indigenous Rights: The Inter-American Court Protects Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation in Ecuador
David Cordero-Heredia, LACS Visiting Scholar
This post was co-authored by David Cordero-Heredia, Professor of Law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and Visiting Scholar for Cornell University’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, and Santiago Garcia Lloré, Acting Director Forest Partnerships, Environmental Defense Fund
Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation (IPLVI) are communities that have chosen to avoid contact with the outside world. They maintain their traditional ways of life deep within remote forests and inaccessible regions. Their territories are among the most pristine and ecologically significant areas on the planet; IPLVIs play a crucial role in global biodiversity conservation.
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Op-ed: Lessons for Democracy’s Defenders
New from Democratic Threats team
A global study of democratic backsliding from Ken Roberts and Rachel Riedl offers ways for U.S. democracy to resist authoritarian attacks.
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Art and Feminism Wikipedia Editathon
April 11, 2025
10:00 am
Olin Library, 107
Cornell University Library and Tompkins County Public Library are hosting their annual Art + Feminism Wikimedia edit-a-thon! Art+Feminism is a global Wikimedia project that aims to address information gaps on Wikipedia and Wikidata. This year’s campaign focuses on the question “What would a feminist internet look like?”
The event will be held in two locations: Olin Library 107 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and in Tompkins County Public Library's BorgWarner East Room from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The edit-a-thon will be open to all, including the Ithaca and Tompkins County community. Learn more about editing Wikipedia and what we plan to work on this year on our LibGuide: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/artandfeminism
This event is co-sponsored by the Tompkins County Public Library, Cornell University Library, and the following Cornell programs: the Department of Art; Department of History of Art and Visual Studies; Department of Romance Studies; Department of Literatures in English; Department of Science and Technology Studies; Asian American Studies program; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program; Latin American and Caribbean Studies program; Media Studies program; Medieval Studies program; Society for the Humanities; Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity; and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.
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Latin American and Caribbean Studies
El Salvador Says Families can File Complaints Over Unjust Detention in Notorious Mega-prison
Gustavo Flores-Macías, LACS
Gustavo Flores-Macías, professor of government, says “Because of the PR benefits to both President Trump and President Bukele, Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador will face considerable challenges to get an opportunity to prove their innocence and regain their freedom.”
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Milei y los nuevos fascismos latinoamericanos (In Spanish)
April 22, 2025
4:45 pm
Statler Hall, STL165
Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at 4:45pm, 165 Statler Hall
A.D. White Professor-at-Large Martín Caparrós will be joined by Department of Global Labor and Work Professors Santiago Anria and Candelaria Garay for a discussion in Spanish that examines Argentine President Javier Milei through the lens of emerging Latin American fascisms.
Martín Caparrós (Buenos Aires, 1957) earned a degree in history in Paris, and worked as a journalist in print, radio, and television. He directed book and cooking magazines, translated Voltaire, Shakespeare, and Quevedo, and received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Planeta and Herralde novel prizes, as well as the Tiziano Terzani, Roger Caillois, and Caballero Bonald essay awards. He also won the Rey de España, Moors Cabot, and Ortega y Gasset journalism prizes. He has published more than forty books in over thirty countries. His most recent works include the novels Sinfín and Sarmiento, the essays Ñamérica and El mundo entonces, and a peculiar semi-posthumous memoir titled Antes que nada. In 2023, Random House launched the “Biblioteca Martín Caparrós,” reissuing most of his works, starting with about 15 previous titles.
Santiago Anria is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Labor and Work at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. His research focuses on the relationships between social movements, labor unions, and political parties in Latin America. He is the author of When Movements Become Parties: The Bolivian MAS in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2018) and Polarization and Democracy: Latin America After the Left Turn (co-authored with Kenneth M. Roberts, forthcoming with The University of Chicago Press). Santiago received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015. He has held fellowships at Harvard University (2021-22) and Tulane University (2015-17).
Candelaria Garay is an associate professor in the Department of Global Labor and Work at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Her research interests include social policy, labor and social movements, and environmental policy. She is the author of Social Policy Expansion in Latin America, which received the 2017 Robert A. Dahl Award of the American Political Science Association and an honorable mention for the 2018 Bryce Wood Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association. She is working on a book titled Labor Coalitions in Unequal Societies. Previously, she was an associate professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina) and at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Caparrós visits Cornell as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large April 21-25, 2025.
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Latin American and Caribbean Studies