Assessing Argentina's October 2017 mid-term elections

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Speakers: Ezequiel González Ocantos (Oxford), Francisco Panizza (LSE), Ana Margheritis (Southampton), Jill Hedges (Oxford Analytica). This panel discussion will assess the outcome of Argentina's legislative elections on 22 October 2017.

For some, the mid-term elections is a gauge of the chances of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to stage a political comeback, as well as a vital political test for the agenda of current president Mauricio Macri. Given the highly polarised context of contemporary Argentine politics, the election comes at a crucial moment. We are therefore delighted to welcome to the Institute a distinguished panel of experts on Argentine politics to discuss the election results and future trajectories for the country.

Dr Ana Margheritis is Reader in International Relations at the University of Southampton and Associate Fellow at the ILAS, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. She previously worked at University of Florida, The  Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Tulane University in the US, as well as Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina. She also hold visiting positions in France, Spain, Italy, the US, Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador. She is the author of four sole-authored books (Migration Governance across Regions. State-Diaspora Relations in the Latin American-Southern Europe Corridor; Argentina's Foreign Policy: Domestic Politics and Democracy Promotion in the Americas; Adjustment and Reform in Argentina, 1989-1995; Foreign Economic Relations of Argentina, 1943-1989), and co-author and editor of three other volumes. Her peer-reviewed articles on transnational migration, international political economy and foreign policy appeared in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals. She is former Contributing Editor to the Handbook of Latin American Studies at the US Library of Congress, and co-editor of two special issues of international refereed journals. She has been consultant for EUDO at the European University Institute, as well as the UNDP, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, private firms in the area of higher education, and national research agencies of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Canada.

Dr Ezequiel González Ocantos (Ph.D. Notre Dame, 2012) is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics & IR and Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College, at the University of Oxford. His book Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) won best book awards from the American Political Science Association, the Latin American Studies Association and the International Studies Association. Ezequiel has also published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and Comparative Politics, among other journals. His research focuses on the impact of international law on domestic judicial politics in Latin America.

Professor Francisco Panizza is Professor in Latin American and Comparative Politics in the Department of Government at the LSE. He joined the LSE in 1995 having previously worked in the Research Department of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, The University of Essex, The Universidad de la República (Montevideo) and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). He has been visiting professor in universities in Argentina, Brazil, France, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland and Uruguay. His main research interests are democratic politics, human rights, populism, the politics of state reform and the politics and policies of the countries of Mercosur. He has written extensively about democracy and development, populism and about left of centre governments in Latin America. Among his main publications are Conceptualizing Comparative Politics (ed. With Anthony Peter Spanakos) (Routledge 2016); 'Moments of Truth: The Politics of Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective ( ed. With George Philip) (Routledge 2014); The Triumph of Politics: The Return of the Left in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador (with George Philip) (Polity 2011); Contemporary Latin America. Development and Democracy Beyond the Washington Consensus (Zed 2009), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy" (Verso, 2005) and 'Unarmed Utopia Revisited: The Resurgence of Left of Centre Politics in Latin America' (Political Studies, 2005). He is currently working on a comparative project on the politics of patronage in Latin America and on setting up an Observatory on the peace process in Colombia within the LACC.

Dr Jill Hedges is Deputy Director of Analysis at Oxford Analytica, where she has been Senior Analyst for Latin America since 2001. Previously she was editorial manager of business information service Esmerk Argentina and a member of Amnesty International's Americas Research Department. She holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Liverpool, and her books Argentina: A Modern History and Evita: The Life of Eva Perón, were published by I B Tauris in 2011 and 2016, respectively.