Americas Quarterly

ThINK TANKS WEIGh IN

with 2008 as an election year, think tanks have been in full gear developing proposals

to try to influence candidate campaigns and

the new government’s policy direction toward latin

America. A council on Foreign relations task force

report, released May 2008, concluded that U.S. policy

should focus on poverty and inequality, public security,

migration, and energy security. in october, the inter-

American Dialogue also offered policy proposals. After

the elections, in november, the Brookings institution’s

Partnership for the Americas commission pub-

lished the results of studies on issues such as energy,

migration, counternarcotics, and trade. U.S.-Mexico

relations are a hot topic. The Mexico institute at the

woodrow wilson international center for Scholars

conducted a working group to look at bi-national

issues, with findings intended to be released before

a new government is seated. Meanwhile, over the

course of 2008, the center for American Progress led

a three-part series that looked at Mexico, Brazil and

hemispheric relations. Think tanks see this as a time

for fresh ideas: will the new president listen?

STATS

Should the Government or Private Sector be

Primarily Responsible for Creating Jobs?

Here’s the percentage of people who prefer

the government.

Paraguay 92.2%

El Salvador 88.6%

Chile 82.7%

Mexico 80.3%

Argentina 78.3%

Brazil 62.4%

Venezuela 59.5%

Haiti 51.5%

Canada 40.7%

United States 30.4%

Source: AmericAsBArometer, 2008, LAtin AmericAn PuBLic

oPinion Project. DAtA is AvAiLABLe for 22 countries.

www.AmericAsBArometer.org

16 americas quarterly fall 2008

Calendar Policy Conferences

AQ shares select policy conferences from around

the hemisphere and europe. in late november,

chief executive officers from the 21 Asia-Pacific

economic cooperation (APec) countries will

gather in Peru as part of the annual APec summit.

November 20-22, 2008
San Juan, Puerto rico

Latin America: Dealing with the Heritage of the

Past, Building Bridges to the future

midwest association for latin american studies

http://www.malasnet.org
November 21-23, 2008
Lima, Peru

APec ceo summit: growth, equity and

sustainable Development: challenges for APec

asia-Pacific economic cooperation

http://www.apecceosummit2008.org
December 3-5, 2008
São Paulo, Brazil

urban Age south America

urban age: a Worldwide investigation into the Future of cities

http://www.urban-age.net
December 3-6, 2008
New orleans, Louisiana

28th u.s. Association and international Association

for energy economics north America conference

http://www.usaee.org
December 8-12, 2008
St. Michael, Barbados

third Annual caribbean conference on

comprehensive Disaster management

the caribbean Disaster emergency response agency

http://www.eird.org
December 11-12, 2008
London, united Kingdom

Latin American Diasporas joint initiative for the

study of Latin America & the caribbean

http://www.jislac.org.uk
May 12-13, 2009
Washington, Dc

39^th Annual washington conference on the Americas

council of the americas

http://www.as-coa.org

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