General Seminar: Institutional Weakening: Pathways and Processes

Daniel Brinks is Professor of Government and of Law. He is the Chair of the Government Department, and is active in the fields of Comparative Politics and Public Law. He is a Senior Researcher & Global Scholar of the Centre on Law and Social Transformation, a joint project of the University of Bergen and Christian Michelsen Institute, in Bergen, Norway.  Dan's research focuses on the role of the law and courts in supporting or extending human rights and many of the basic rights associated with democracy, with a primary regional interest in Latin America. His award-winning recent book, written with Abby Blass, The DNA of Constitutional Justice in Latin America: Politics, Governance and Judicial Design, examines constitutional change in Latin America since 1975. Other recent books, in collaboration with Steve Levitsky and Vicky Murillo, seek to understand what we mean by, and the political origins of, weak institutions in Latin America. Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions, and The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America, both with Cambridge University Press, come out of that project.