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The Latin American Program and its institutes on Mexico and Brazil serve as a bridge between the United States and Latin America, providing a nonpartisan forum for experts from throughout the region and the world to discuss the most critical issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program sponsors research, conferences, and publications aimed at deepening the understanding of Latin American and Caribbean politics, history, economics, culture, and U.S.-Latin American relations. By bringing pressing regional concerns to the attention of opinion leaders and policymakers, the Program contributes to more informed policy choices in Washington, D.C., and throughout the Hemisphere.
The Latin American Program coordinates an active program of public meetings featuring scholars, analysts, and public officials from the United States, Latin America, and around the world. The Program and its related Institutes host scores of events each year in Washington, D.C., and throughout Latin America. These events allow researchers, members of the policymaking community, the media, and the general public to keep apprised of current thinking in and about Latin America on a broad range of critical issues. All Latin American Program events are free of charge and most are open to the public.
The Program disseminates the results of its activities through publications including conference reports, bulletins, event summaries, and commercially published books. Latin American Program publications are usually available free-of-charge and are distributed electronically and in print to individuals, organizations, and institutions throughout the world. Most publications are also available on this website.
The Program conducts outreach to members of the U.S. Congress and their staffs, aimed at broadening congressional understanding of key issues in bilateral U.S.-Latin American relations. In cooperation with the Wilson Center on the Hill project, the Program sponsors trips to the region for members of Congress as well as briefings for staff.
Major Initiatives
Democratic Governance
The Program’s work on democratic governance focuses on questions of democratic quality. Current research seeks to explain the rise of leftist and populist governments in Latin America and to explore the impact of specific public policies to reduce poverty and inequality and enhance citizen participation and human rights. The project builds on three decades of prior work on democratic governance at the Wilson Center, including path-breaking studies of the breakdown of democratic regimes, transitions from authoritarianism, challenges to the consolidation of democratic rule, decentralization, citizenship, and the relationship between democratization and internal armed conflict.
Citizen Security
Crime, violence, and citizen insecurity challenge, if not threaten, democracies throughout the Western hemisphere. Organized crime has penetrated and corrupted public institutions in many countries, and citizens throughout the region cite crime, along with unemployment, as their principal concern. At the same time, Latin American countries have accumulated significant experience in reforming and modernizing police forces and implementing policies to combat crime and address its root causes. The Latin American Program sponsors comparative research on local, national, and international public policies to address citizen insecurity and related policies to strengthen institutions and the rule of law.
Trade
The Program’s trade initiative explores the political economy of free trade agreements in the United States as well as in Latin America. Trade issues have mobilized popular and civil society groups throughout the Americas and have caused disputes within governments and ruling coalitions. Because trade-related reforms take place in the context of economic dislocations throughout the region, they have generated unprecedented debate over winners and losers in the process of globalization. Through comparative research and public dialogue, the project seeks a deeper understanding of the distributional impacts of free trade and related public policies to enhance the positive impacts of trade liberalization.
Foreign Policy and International Relations
Based in Washington and with its reputation for balanced, high-level exchange, the Wilson Center provides an ideal forum for discussion of U.S.-Latin American relations as well as the foreign policy priorities and initiatives of Latin American countries. Conferences and seminars explore U.S. bilateral relations with individual countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico, as well as such topics as the emergence of regional and sub-regional leadership, the politics of energy, and the role of powers such as China and Iran in the region.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the hemispheric security project known as Creating Community in the Americas aimed to foment strategic debate over matters of human, national, regional, and hemispheric security, and to facilitate a coherent response to the opportunities and challenges posed by the Cold War, 9/11, and the accelerating advance of globalization.
Brazil Institute
The Brazil Institute is the only country-specific public policy institution in Washington dedicated to Brazil. Through seminars, original research, and publications, the Institute fosters bilateral dialogue and cooperation between Brazil and United States, deepens Washington's understanding of contemporary Brazilian developments and advances the study and discussion of Brazil's public policies. The Institute carries out initiatives on environment, sustainable agriculture, innovation, the development of alternative energy, race relations, Brazilian foreign policy, and U.S.-Brazilian relations.
Mexico Institute
The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. The Mexico Institute sponsors major initiatives aimed at forging a strategic partnership between the United States and Mexico and exploring such critical issues as immigration, the civic and political participation of Latino immigrants, and freedom of expression and transparency in Mexico. The Mexico Institute sponsors a fellowship program that brings Mexican scholars to Washington for brief periods of residency at the Wilson Center.
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Cynthia Arnson,
Director
Andrew Selee,
Director, Mexico Institute
Paulo Sotero,
Director, Brazil Institute
Robert Donnelly,
Program Associate, Mexico Institute
José Raúl Perales,
Senior Program Associate
Nikki Nichols,
Program Assistant
Kate Putnam,
Program Assistant, Mexico Institute
Adam Stubits,
Program Associate
Leslie Bethell,
Senior Scholar, Brazil Institute
Joan Nelson,
Senior Scholar
Joseph S. Tulchin,
Senior Scholar
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Latin American Program
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
Email: lap@wilsoncenter.org
Tel: 202/691-4030
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