Local Political Power and Violence Over Land and the Environment in Brazil

Join Robert Blair, Arkadij Eisler Goldman Sachs Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University, for a Global Challenges to Democracy seminar.

Brazil is one of the world's deadliest places for people defending themselves and their communities from territorial dispossession and environmental degradation, with the Amazon region accounting for the vast majority of these deaths. By combining a regression discontinuity design based on politician characteristics with an original survey reaching nearly 2,000 residents of some of the Amazon's most remote settlements, this seminar will examine how extractive interests and local political power intersect to generate violence against these severely marginalized populations.

This event will be recorded. Lunch will be served starting at 11:45 AM.

This event is co-sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Office Hours

In addition to this event, interested Harvard faculty, fellows and students can sign up for office hours to meet with Robert Blair. Slots are first-come, first-served and are available from 10:30-11:30 AM and 2:00-5:00 PM on October 6.

Sign up for Robert Blair’s office hours here

About the Series

In the span of a few years, democracy has gone from a likely, if distant, destination for much of the world to a far more tenuous prospect. This seminar series, co-chaired by Professors Yanilda María González and Gautam Nair and hosted by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, delves deep into the various challenges, both internal and external, that stand in the way of building more accountable, responsive and capable democracies. Leading scholars of politics provide insights using a wide variety of methods and expertise in countries from across the globe.