Javier Corrales
Javier Corrales is a political scientist at Amherst College. He was born in Puerto Rico to parents that were part of the Cuban exile. He received a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and earned his PhD in political science from Harvard University. His dissertation focused on comparative economy in Argentina and Venezuela. He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson [International Center for Scholars] from 2000-2001.
Since 2014, he has served as Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst. In 2015, Corrales coined the term autocratic legalism to explain how Venezuela transitioned to authoritarianism by using the legal system to impose autocracy. Sociologist Kim [Lane Scheppele] expanded upon the idea in her own work in 2018. Corrales is the author of the book Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism.
Selected publications
- Autocracy Rising
- The Politics of LGBTQ Rights Expansion in Latin America and Caribbean
- Fixing Democracy
- With Michael Penfold. Dragon in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez
- With Daniel Altschuler. The Promise of Participation: Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatemala
- With Carlos A. Romero. U.S.-Venezuela Relations Since the 1990s.
- Co-editor with Mario Pecheny. The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader on GLBT Rights
- ''Presidents Without Parties: the Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s''