Pardee Center Task Force: Latin America 2060

Project Coordinator: Prof. Carlos Blanco (cblanco@bu.edu) and Prof. David Scott Palmer (dspalmer@bu.edu)

Boston University’s Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Latin American Studies Program formed a Task Force to analyze the likely developments in Latin America over the next fifty years and the social, economic, political, and cultural patterns most likely to emerge.

The project convened an experts meeting, where invited specialists were asked to reflect upon and discuss the following question: If Latin America, as a region, is to achieve sustained development and full integration over the next 50 years what major changes, new institutions and reforms have to occur?

The Task Force members who presented include:

Carlos Blanco (Boston University)
Ramon Espinasa (InterAmerican Development Bank)
Silvia Inclán (UNAM, México)
Kevin Gallagher (Boston University)
Ann Helwege (Boston University)
Tom Kunz (Boston University)
David Scott Palmer (Boston University)
Riordan Roett (Johns Hopkins University)
Dylon Robbins (Boston University)
Enrique Saravia (Getulio Vargas Foundation)
Anitra Thorhaug (Club of Rome)

Latin America has produced vigorous ideas throughout its history, expressed in narratives about its struggles and successes, or its weaknesses and failures. Together, these have shaped a multi-faceted vision of the region and its peoples. Some of its expositors, finding the story to be neither complete nor precise, work toward reformulations, some quite radical. Such generation of knowledge in different fields seems destined to yield a variety of distinct outcomes, at least in part because some of the emerging social and cultural movements are not yet very well structured. This Task Force Report project seeks to harness ideas about the region’s future into a coherent and policy useful discourse.

A Workshop and a Task Force meeting was held at Boston University on November 18-19, 2010. A select group of invited experts – a mix of academic scholars and practitioners – were asked to turn their ideas into short ‘Think Pieces’ essays. Each Think Piece focuses on a specific topical issue for the region as a whole, instead of looking only at particular countries. These Think Piece essays are compiled and edited by the Task Force coordinator and published by the Pardee Center as a Task Force Report.

The co-conveners of the Pardee Center Task Force are Prof. Carlos Blanco and Prof. David Scott Palmer.

Videos of the conference:

Session 1: Development

Session 2: Politics and Policies

Session 3: Environmental Sustainability

This builds on initial discussions on the broader topic at a November 2008 Pardee House Seminar (see report here and view video here).

The Task Force report was published in September 2011. Download it here.