Annual Report 2008-2009
Laurence Whitehead (Official Fellow) This year, as the publications list indicates, a variety of collaborative projects and edited volumes came to fruition. In particular the long-awaited “Democratization in America” volume finally came out, and also an edited volume with a much faster turn-around on the Obama Administration and the Americas. These two publications are more directly concerned with the politics of the USA than any of my previous writings, and they are both targeted at a North American readership. At the same time the work with a Latin American focus (on criminality and human rights) is aimed mainly at the area studies community. There is also a more specific focus on Bolivia, and there are also publications directed towards Europe (some in Spanish). In keeping with this wide geographical coverage, I made scholarly presentations at conferences in Hamburg, Lisbon, London and Paris (where I chair the Conseil Scientifique of the Institut des Ameriques), as well as in Atlanta, Houston, and Washington D.C. My Latin American work was focussed on the Latin American Studies Association conference in Rio de Janeiro (I chaired the LASA Nominations Committee) and the International Political Science Association Congress in Santiago de Chile (where I completed my second and final term as chair of Research Committee 13 on Comparative Democratization). In addition I chaired the external review Committee evaluation the Political Science Department at Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, and presented a paper at a conference at the Latin American Institute of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Back in Oxford my regular college and university activities included service on the Prize Research Fellowship Committee and the Audit and Scrutiny Committee, as well as my usual teaching, supervision and examination tasks. I also carried on my regular contributions to democratization studies in the UK.
My major ongoing and prospective work takes a different tack from the past. I am making progress on a book tentatively titled “The Political Animal”. This is intended as a fresh look at the foundational assumptions underlying the study of politics in general. It takes a sweeping global and comparative approach, and aims to incorporate current insights from evolutionary biology and neuroscience. There is a previous literature on biology and politics, but it is now quite out of date, and the crucial issues that it raised have slipped from the attention of most western political scientists. My ambition is to renovate a neglected area of scholarship and to offer a corrective to current disembodied and excessively rationalistic approaches to the discipline of political studies.
Publications
The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change, Lowenthal, A., Piccone, T., and Whitehead, L. (eds.), Brookings Institution Press, 2009 Chapter 13, pp. 203-224.
Democratization in America: A Comparative-Historical Analysis, D. King, R. C. Lieberman, G. Ritter and L. Whitehead (eds.) The Johns Hopkins Press, 2009.
Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia Past and Present, L. Whitehead and J. Crabtree (eds.) (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.)
Also revised and expanded in Spanish, Laurence Whitehead, John Crabtree and George Gray Molin a, (eds.) Tensiones irresueltas, Bolivia, pasado y presente, (Plural, 2009) pp.287-298.
“Losing ‘the Force’? The Dark Side of democratization after Iraq” in Democratization, April 2009, Vol. 16 No.2 pp.215- 242
“The European Union and Latin America: After Liberal Triumphalism” in Proceedings of the Encuentro Latino Europeo, 2008, ELE/Socires, The Hague, 2009 pp.21-27.
“Regionalismo, derechos humanos y democratización en America: La importancia del contexto” Araucaria, Año 10, No. 20, 2008, pp104-136
“Navigating in Fog: Meta-Narrative in the Americas today” in A. F. Cooper and J Heine (eds.) Which Way in Latin America? Hemispheric Politics Meets Globalisation, (United Nations’ University Press, ) 2009, pp. 27-49.
Whitehead, Laurence “The International Politics of Democratization from Portugal (1974) to Iraq (2003)” in Nuno Severiano Teixeira, (ed,.) The International Politics of Democratization, (Routledge, 2008), pps.8-25.
Whitehead, Laurence “Dominant parties and democratization : theory and comparative experience” in Edward Friedman and Joseph Wong (eds.) Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose , (Routledge, 2008) pps.269-283.
Whitehead, Laurence, “Consecuencias de la democratization en la politica exterior de Mexico” in Covarrubias, Ana, (ed.) Temas de Politica Exterior, (El Colegio de Mexico, 2008) pp. 365-388.
“Universalismo y relativismo: un dialogo y una integración” with Alexandra Barahona de Brito in Pensar Iberoamérica Antonio Hermosa Andújar and Samuel Schmidt (eds.) Prometeo Libros (2009) pp.345-360
“Reżimy autokratyczne. Kiedy i Gaziel się liberalizują oraz jak państwa o utrwalonej demokracji mogą im pomóc” in W. Borodzieja and S. Dębskiego (eds.) Modernizacja Centrum Peryferie, (Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2009) pp.449-462
Democracy and Social Inequalities, in Development and Transition: From Theory to Policy in Europe and the CIS, Reform of the State Issue 12/2009 (UNDP,) http://www.developmentandtransition.net/index.cfm?module=ActiveWeb&page=WebPage&DocumentID=706