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Registration now open for "Ten Years of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) - Progress, Problems, and Prospects"

At the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, Thursday February 26, 9:30-17:30

This one-day conference will address not only ALBA’s achievements and innovations, but also its difficulties and tensions, asking: what can be learnt from its achievements so far? What are its prospects for the future? And what are the implications both theoretical and practical for the region and beyond?

There will be three panels focusing on:

1) approaches to ALBA and its initiatives (social policy, SUCRE, TCP)

2) the domestic roots of ALBA (particularly in Venezuela and Nicaragua)

3) ALBA’s role in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the wider world

Speakers come from a wide range of countries and institutions, and this conference provides a rare opportunity to bring together a number of leading researchers with an explicit interest in this much-debated regional project.

The panels will be followed by a keynote speech on “ALBA and the fourth wave of regionalism in Latin America” by Olivier Dabène (Sciences Po, Paris), President of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (OPALC) and author of “The Politics of Regional Integration in Latin America” (Palgrave, 2009).

Programme (also below as text) and abstracts:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9019872/ALBA10_prog_abstracts.pdf

Registration (standard £15, students/unwaged £10, to cover cost of rooms, refreshments, lunch)

http://store.london.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=5&deptid=179&catid=37&prodid=819

Poster (please feel free to advertise wherever relevant):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9019872/ALBA10_poster.jpg

Programme

Panel 1: Approaching ALBA and Its Initiatives

Self-awareness and Critique: Researching the ALBA-TCP

Christopher David Absell, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

A very Latin American Social Policy? ALBA, counter hegemonic regionalism, and ‘living well’

Kepa Artaraz, University of Brighton

Five years of the SUCRE: examining the successes and limitations of the ALBA's virtual common currency

Stephanie Pearce, Radical Americas Network

ALBA without the TCP: Why Does the “Unimplementation” of the People’s Trade Agreement Matter?

Asa K. Cusack, Institute of Latin American Studies (University of London)

Panel 2: The Domestic Roots of ALBA

The interplay between ALBA and Sandinismo in current day Nicaragua

Johannes Wilm, Independent

From Magical State to Magical Region? Ecology, Labour and Socialism in ALBA

Rowan Lubbock, Birkbeck College (University of London)

Venezuela: Attempts to build a Socialist Communal Economy and its impact on ALBA

Helen Yaffe, University of Leicester

Venezuela in Crisis: How Sustainable is Venezuela’s Support to ALBA?

Jose Manuel Puente, LAC-University of Oxford & IESA (Caracas)

Panel 3: ALBA in LAC and the Wider World

ALBA as process: origins, development, prospects.

David Raby, University of Liverpool

South-South development cooperation and the ALBA-TCP/PETROCARIBE-CARICOM-MERCOSUR ‘Complementary Economic Zone’

Thomas Muhr, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg

The Way Forward for CARICOM Member States Signatory to the ALBA: A Comparative Assessment of the Significance of the Petrocaribe Agreement to the Development of CARICOM Member States

Kai-Ann D. Skeete, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine - Institute of IR