Freedoms and Flashpoints:
Elections Around the Globe in 2024

Democracy, Freedom and Truth Series of the International Institute

Tuesday, October 8, 2024
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Bunche Hall, Room 10383
RSVP required: https://ucla.in/4cYbBYW

Four panelists will each speak briefly about important elections in India, Mexico, Latin America and the European Union, respectively, and the issues that these elections have brought to the fore. The audience will then be invited to participate in a larger conversation, considering what these and other electoral flashpoints reveal about the current shifting world order in advance of the U.S. presidential election in November 2024.

Speakers

Susanna Hecht, Luskin School of Public Affairs, Institute of Environment and Sustainability, Latin American Institute, UCLA

Hecht has academic appointments in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA. She also serves as director of the Center for Brazilian Studies of the Latin American Institute. She is proficient in numerous languages and her publications focus focused on such far-reaching topics as migration, urbanization, the Amazon and natural resources in South America.

Hecht will address three extremely “dicey” elections in countries that have Amazon sovereignties: Venezuela (poster country for election fraud), Bolivia (country of a staged “auto coup”) and Peru. All three are flailing if not failed states, with elections in these countries having implications for their capacity to govern critical large areas of the Amazon, with far broader effects at the level of local systems, climate and the rise of clandestine economies.

Ulrike Klinger, Thomas Mann House and European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder

Klinger is currently a Thomas Mann Fellow. She is professor and chair of Digital Democracy, as well as a member of the board of directors of the European New School of Digital Studies at European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder.

Klinger will discuss the new European Parliament that was elected in June 2024 in relation to the upcoming U.S. election, giving a comparative perspective on democratic vulnerabilities, democratic backsliding and safeguarding core democratic institutions. She brings a longitudinal perspective to her consideration of the role of election campaigns on social media, together with the successes of far-right parties and the divisions within them.

Tejas Parasher, Department of Political Science and International Institute, UCLA

Parasher, assistant professor of political theory, has a joint appointment in the department of political science and the International Institute at UCLA. He is the author of “Radical Democracy in Modern Indian Political Thought” (Cambridge, 2023). His research explores the political philosophy of collective self-determination, political representation and statehood.

Parasher will discuss the distinctive problem of democratic backsliding across global elections in 2024, using the Indian general parliamentary elections in April-May to speak more generally about current issues of constitutional erosion and electoral autocracy worldwide.

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, Latin American Institute and Labor Center, UCLA

Professor Rivera-Salgado is director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies and project director at the UCLA Labor Center, where he is a member of the core faculty in the UCLA labor studies program. He directs the Global Labor Initiative with an emphasis on cross-border, worker-to-worker collaborations between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Rivera-Salgado will address the June 2024 landslide victory of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, with attention to both the power Sheinbaum assumes —with significant ability to pass constitutional reforms — and the challenges she will face, given Mexico’s complex political dynamics and endemic security and rule-of-law challenges.

Moderators

Marjorie Elaine, Associate Vice Provost, UCLA International Institute and Professor of Education, UCLA School of Education & Information Studies

David Kim, Associate Vice Provost, UCLA International Institute and Professor of European Languages & Transnational Studies

Sponsor(s): UCLA International Institute