The Washington Office on Latin America
is pleased to invite you to a discussion on
 
VENEZUELA: Countdown to the October 7 Presidential Election
 
featuring
 
Dr. Jennifer Lynn McCoy
Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University
Director of the Americas Program, Carter Center
 
and
 
Dr. David Smilde
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Georgia
 
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
1:30 p.m. -3:00 p.m.
Washington Office on Latin America
1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC  20009

To RSVP, please contact Anthony Dest at adest@wola.org.

Professors Jennifer McCoy and David Smilde were in Venezuela for the February 12 primary elections of the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD). McCoy led the Carter Center’s election observation team, while Smilde conducted research on socialism and citizen security issues.
 
Henrique Capriles Radonsky, governor of the state of Miranda, won the vote by a wide margin and will face incumbent Hugo Chávez in the presidential election set for October 7.

McCoy and Smilde will discuss the unprecedented primary event and scenarios arising from it, as well as the issues that will run through the Venezuelan election campaign in the months to come.
 
Jennifer McCoy is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University and Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program. A specialist on democratization, international collective promotion of democracy, and Latin American politics, Dr. McCoy’s latest book is International Mediation in Venezuela (with Francisco Diez, U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2011). She is also co-editor and contributor to The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela (with David Myers, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Dr. McCoy's academic career has included extensive fieldwork in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and in Uruguay, where she conducted research as a Fulbright fellow in 1991 and 1992.
 
David Smilde is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Georgia, chair of the Venezuelan Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association, and editor-in-chief of the journal Qualitative Sociology. A specialist on social mobilization, participation, and culture, he has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Católica Andres Bello and the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. Dr. Smilde is co-editor and contributor to Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and Culture under Chávez (Duke University Press, 2011). He is currently working on a book called Venezuela’s Transition to Socialism: Politics and Human Rights under Hugo Chávez.