Simon Fraser University’s School for International Studies
invites you to a free public lecture
John M. Ackerman (National Autonomous University of Mexico): “The Battle for Mexico and the Future of Justice and Democracy in North America”
Thursday, January 14, 2016, 6:30pm
7000 Earl & Jennie Lohn Policy Room
Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC V6B 5K3
The dominant external view of Mexican politics and political culture is of a backwards, “underdeveloped” country which desperately needs to “modernize” by imitating the political system of the United States and Canada. Mexico is presented as a chaotic and corrupt narco-wasteland held back by its colonial history and authoritarian politics. The apparent solution is therefore to free the country from its past by “liberalizing” both politics and markets, developing the “middle class” and instilling a new “culture of legality” among its people. This talk exposes the neo-colonial nature of such an approach and proposes turning the tables entirely. The United States and Canada have much more to learn from Mexico than the other way around. Indeed, Mexico’s long history of political struggle is poised today to become a key inspiration in the struggle to reconnect democracy and social change throughout the globe.
John M. Ackerman is one of Mexico´s leading public intellectuals, writing bi-weekly columns at both the daily La Jornada and at Proceso magazine. He also writes frequently on Latin American politics for the international press, including Los Angeles Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Suddeutsche Zeitung, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Nation and The Atlantic. He is a Professor at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has published numerous books and scholarly articles in English, Spanish and French on the Mexican political system. Ackerman is also Editor-in-Chief of the Mexican Law Review, Vice President of the International Association of Administrative Law and has served as a Visiting Scholar at American University in Washington, DC and at the Sorbonne (Paris III) and Sciences Po in Paris, France. He holds an MA and PhD in Political Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz as well as a PhD in Law from UNAM and a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College. In 2012, the UNAM awarded him the prize for the university’s leading young scholar in the social sciences. His most recent book is El mito de la transición democrática: nuevas coordenadas para la transformación del régimen mexicano (Planeta, 2015).