A UCLA Forum on Brazil's Current Political Crisis

Wednesday, May 04, 2016
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Building
Room 4357
A panel of experts addressed Brazil's current political crisis.
Panelists:
William Summerhill, (Professor of History, UCLA) is an economic historian of Brazil, and the author of Inglorious Revolution (Yale Press, 2015) and Order Against Progress (Stanford Press, 2003). He has been a visiting professor at the Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP), the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), and visiting research scholar at the Escola de Pós-Graduação em Economia of the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (EPGE-FGV).
Barbara Geddes, (Professor of Political Science, UCLA) who earned her Ph.D. from UC, Berkeley, has written about autocratic politics, regime transition, bureaucratic reform and corruption, political bargaining over institutional change, and research design. Her current research focuses on politics in dictatorships. Her publications include Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politic (2003); Politician’s Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (1994); “What Causes Democratization?” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Science (2009); “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions” (with Erica Frantz and Joseph Wright) in Perspectives on Politics (2014); and “Military Rule” (with Joseph Wright and Erica Frantz) in the Annual Review of Political Science (2014). The Comparative Politics Organized Section of the American Political Science Association awarded her the Bingham Powell Graduate Mentoring Award in 2014. She teaches Latin American politics, authoritarian politics, and research design at UCLA, where she won the Award for Best Graduate Mentoring in 2014.
Roberto Véras de Oliveira (Associate Professor at Federal University of Paraíba and Visiting Scholar at IRLE -Institute for Research on Labor and Employment). Social Science Department and Graduate Program in Sociology. Ph.D. in Sociology, University of São Paulo (USP). Thesis: “Sindicalismo e Democracia no Brasil: Atualizações - Do Novo Sindicalismo ao Sindicato Cidadão” (“Unionism and Democracy in Brazil: From the New Unionism to the Citizen Unionism”). Areas of interest: Sociology of Work (Trade Unionism; Precarious and Informal Work; Work and Development under Local-Global Perspective; Labor Relations Dynamics; Public Policy of Work; Professional Qualification; Solidarity Economy etc.); Political Sociology; Social Theory. Among books, articles and book chapters, stands out: Véras de Oliveira, Roberto. Sindicalismo e democracia no Brasil: do novo sindicalismo ao sindicato cidadão. 1ª. ed. São Paulo: Annablume Editora, 2011. v. 1. 394p. Véras de Oliveira, Roberto (Ed.); Bridi, Maria (Ed.) ; FERRAZ, M. (Ed.) . O sindicalismo na Era Lula: paradoxos, perspectivas e olhares. 1a. ed. Belo Horizonte: Editora Fino Traço, 2014. v. 01. 404p .
Manoel Gehrke (PhD student in Political Science at UCLA). His main research interests are political corruption and inequality, particularly in Latin America. He has worked as a researcher for the European Commission, holds a Masters in Economics from Bocconi University, a Masters in Political Economy of Development from Pompeu Fabra University and a BA in Economics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
Moderator: Fabrício M. Fialho, PhD Candidate, Political Science, UCLA.