A two day academic conference cosponsored by Bobst and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), held in honor of Professors David and Ruth Collier for their foundational contributions to the field. For more information, please see the PIIRS website: http://www.princeton.edu/piirs/events/viewevent.xml?id=2059

Organizers: Deborah Yashar, Princeton; Diana Kapiszewski, Georgetown Univ.; Steve Levitsky, Harvard

This is a closed conference examining what has been called the “new incorporation” in Latin America: efforts over the last 15-20 years by leftist parties, unions, populist leaders, social movements, and other actors to mobilize previously marginalized citizens and groups. The conference will focus on conceptualizing and explaining these processes. First, conference participants will seek to better conceptualize the “new incorporation” by examining the various forms it has taken across the region, and comparing and contrasting these patterns with those of the “old” incorporation of organized labor in the mid-20th century. Second and critically, participants will explore the political, economic, and social factors that contributed to generating these contemporary processes. The conference will also consider, if more speculatively, some of the implications of the “new incorporation” for regimes and state society relations. The papers presented at the conference will be subsequently assembled into an edited volume. The conference and proposed volume will be dedicated to Ruth and David Collier, who wrote the seminal book on the “old” incorporation; and who moreover trained a generation of leading scholars working on Latin American politics.

Cosponsors: The Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies; The Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace & Justice; The Project on Democracy & Development