[act-ma] Thurs, 9/13 Post-neoliberalism in Latin America: A New Vision for Development?

[omar sierra]

The Latino Studies Program at UMass Boston and the Consulate General
of Venezuela are sponsoring the conference

POST-NEOLIBERALISM IN LATIN AMERICA: A NEW VISION FOR DEVELOPMENT?

Aimed to end the neoliberal policy prescriptions promoted by the
IMF-Washington Consensus—which are credited with the critical levels
of social inequality and poverty in the region—governments and social
movements in many countries south of the border have pledged to
redefine the role of the state in the economy. This new trend, taking
place on different scales, in various contexts and by different
actors, has brought economic growth and a more equitable social order.
This panel will explore whether postneoliberalism is an economic
theory or a political ideology, and what is its vision for
development.

The Speakers:

Miguel Angel Contreras PhD, President of the Institute for Advanced
Studies in Caracas, Venezuela

and

Mark Weisbrot PhD, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research in Washington D.C.

Thursday, September 13, 2012 at the Sociology Conference Room
University of Massachusetts - Boston
Wheatley Hall, 4th Floor, Room 23
100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.,

Latin American Food Will Be Served

About the panelists:

Miguel Angel Contreras, Ph.D. Is the president of the  Institute for
Advanced Studies (IDEA) in Venezuela.  A sociologist, professor
Contreras holds degrees in Planning Development and Development
Studies from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (CENDES-UCV), where
he has acted as Academic Coordinator and Director of the School of
Sociology, professor at the Graduate School for Humanities, and at the
Department of Law and Political Science.

Mr. Contreras has produced a number of articles and published several
books on the subject of development. Along with Escobar, Borda and
other scholars, he is co-author of “Development, Eurocentrism and
Popular Economics. Beyond the Neoliberal Paradigm” (2006). His latest
publication, “The Geopolitics of the Spirits” (2011), is part of his
current investigation on the relationship between social movements and
participatory democracy in the context of major political and
spiritual transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from
the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on
economic policy, especially on Latin America and international
economic policy. He is also co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social
Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000).

He writes a weekly column for The Guardian Unlimited (U.K.), and a
regular column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to
over 550 newspapers by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His
opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post,
the Los Angeles Times, and almost every major U.S. newspaper, as well
as for Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de Sao Paulo. He appears
regularly on national and local television and radio programs. He is
also president of Just Foreign Policy.