Podcast

Greg talks with Elizabeth Stein, who is the Mark Helmke postdoctoral scholar of global media, development and democracy and a visiting assistant professor at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies. The topic is presidential attacks on media in Latin America, with comparison to Donald Trump. Be sure to check out her recent piece in the Monkey Cage with Marisa Kellan on this very topic.

Greg talks with Stephanie Slaughter, who is Associate Professor of Spanish at Alma College, about President Trump and Latinx engagement on social media. She just published an article in The Latin Americanist on the topic: “#TrumpEffects: Creating Rhetorical Spaces for Latinx Political Engagement.”

Greg talks with James Bosworth, a consultant who is well known in the Latin American politics blogosphere for Bloggings by Boz, which is even older than my blog. The topic is Ecuador’s presidential election. Wikileaks even gets into the conversation.

Greg talks with Hugo Pérez Hernáiz, who is is Profesor de la Escuela de Sociología at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, about Venezuelan conspiracy theories. He studies political conspiracies and has blogged extensively about both Venezuelan politics and conspiracy theories on his blog Venezuelan Conspiracy Theories Monitor and on the Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights blog, run by the Washington Office on Latin America.

Greg talks with Orlando Pérez, a political scientist who is Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Millersville University. The topic is the military in Central America, which he has studied extensively.  Why is it such a trusted institution despite human rights abuses? What is its political role? Not particularly an uplifting conversation but definitely a fascinating one.

Greg talks with David Cupery, who is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The topic is anti-Americanism in Latin America, which unfortunately may become quite relevant again. Be sure to check out his new article in the special issue of The Latin Americanist. Note: the reference to episode “20” rather than “21” is just an alternative fact.

Greg talks with Ryan Carlin, who is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University. The topics are accountability, satisfaction with democracy, and trust in Latin America. Even sorting out how people define “democracy” can be problematic.

Greg talks with Tom Long, who is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Reading and author of Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence. They discuss how Latin American foreign policy tends to get ignored, the balance between studying individual policy makers and structural conditions, and U.S. influence in Latin America. And with inauguration only a week away, they finish by talking about Donald Trump.

Greg talks with Miguel Centellas, who is Croft Instructional Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi. His research focuses on political institutions in new democracies, and he’s done a lot of work on Bolivia. We talked about how electoral rules have affected political stability, what’s up with the opposition, and the question of Evo Morales trying for another presidential term. BTW, he also plugs his very cool Bolivia study abroad program. You can get more info here: https://www.facebook.com/BFS2016

Greg talks with himself, or rather to you, about the most important events/processes in Latin America during 2016.