Community Organization and Participation
in Venezuela
A talk by José A. Laguarta Ramírez
Co-sponsored by AELLA
Thursday, November 30 at 6:30 PM
DSC Lounge (Room 5414)
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Since the election of President Hugo Chávez
in 1998, the government of Venezuela has proclaimed a revolution
based on the principles of “participative democracy”
and “socialism of the twenty-first century,” a project
that has resonated with the country’s long-neglected poor
majority. Opponents, however, charge the government with squandering
the country’s oil wealth to prop itself up, becoming increasingly
authoritarian in the process. What exactly is participative democracy?
What are its limits and limitations? Can it coexist with representative
institutions? How will the “socialism of the twenty-first
century” be different from the socialisms of the previous
century?
José A. Laguarta Ramírez is a fourth-year
student in the Ph.D. Program in Political Science at the CUNY
Graduate Center, a Research Assistant at the Samuels Center, and
former Co-chair of AELLA. He recently spent two weeks in the barrios
of Caracas, where he interviewed residents and activists about
their experiences in community organizing during the last eight
years.
Click here to
see the flyer.
The Coalition of Queer Organizations
in Hong Kong
November 7 at 6:30 PM
Room 9206
On November 7 at 6:30 PM, at the City University
of New York’s Graduate School and University Center, Connie
Chan Man-wai will discuss her experiences in queer activism in
Hong Kong. Connie Chan Man-wai, founder in 2003 of the Women’s
Coalition of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, one
of Hong Kong’s most active groups serving the LGTQ community,
and its chair, has been involved in queer activism since 1993.
She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Cultural
Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
Panel Discussion
On September 6 at 7:00 PM, at the City University
of New York's Graduate Center, former New York State Senator Seymour
Lachman and a panel of experts will be discussing his book, Three
Men in a Room. Three
Men in a Room is an insider's expose of how one of the
country's largest and most powerful governments--with the fourth-largest
budget, behind only the federal government's, California's, and
Texas's--has become a model of inefficient and undemocratic governance.
Seymour Lachman ran the New York City Board of Education, taught
political science, and was then elected to New York's legislature.
What he found when he arrived in the halls of the state senate
was a Potemkin village of government where legislators vote on
bills they haven't read during legislative sessions they haven't
attended. After four terms, Lachman left his safe seat in disgust,
and has now written this sharp, mordant, and impassioned call
for reform.
The panel, consisting of Senator Lachman, Retired
New York State Senator Franz Leichter, Professor Eric Lane (Hofstra
University) and Suzanne Novak (Brennan Center for Justice at NYU
School Of Law) will be moderated by Professor Marilyn Gittell
(Howard Samuels Center, CUNY Graduate Center) will be available
to answer questions, and Senator Lachman will be available to
sign copies of Three
Men in a Room. Copies of Three
Men in a Room will be available for purchase.
The Graduate School and University Center of the
City University of New York is located at 365 Fifth Avenue, at
34th Street.
Contact us to be notified by e-mail of upcoming
Howard Samuels Center Events!
events@howardsamuelscenter.org.
