#  Coups d’État in Latin America: Continuities and Ruptures from the Cold War to Yesterday 

 



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####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **February 17, 2026** 

 12:00PM - 01:30PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS South, Room S216**  

No registration required to attend in person.

 

 

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Coups in Latin America are often treated as Cold War artifacts. But some of the patterns that produced them are still active. Building on Coups d'État in Cold War Latin America, 1964–1982 (Cambridge, 2025), the editors extend their analysis to the present, tracing how two forces continue to reshape Latin American politics: US intervention (now morphing from military coups to economic extortion to intimidation) and the Christian right (which has shifted from defending the status quo to remaking society in its image). Contemporary cases—from Bukele’s El Salvador to Milei’s Argentina to current US pressures on Colombia and Brazil—reveal both continuities and innovations.

*This event is presented in collaboration with the* [*Weatherhead Center for International Affairs*](https://wcfia.harvard.edu/)*.*



 

 ### Sebastián Carassai

Speaker

Professor of History, Centre for Intellectual History, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes



 

   ![Sebastián Carassai ](/sites/g/files/omnuum12451/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-02/Carassai%20photo%20%281%29.JPG?itok=1gKMvKMk) 

 

 

 

 ### Kevin Coleman

Speaker

Associate Professor of History, University of Toronto



 

   ![Kevin Coleman](/sites/g/files/omnuum12451/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-02/KEVIN%20C8221WebFinal%20copia.jpg?itok=qEwmlYvX) 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 ### Steven Levitsky

Moderator

Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies; Professor of Government, Harvard



 

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##  Bios 

 



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###    Sebastián Carassai  expand\_more  

**Sebastián Carassai**, Professor of History and member of the Centre for Intellectual History at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, is the author of *The Argentine Silent Majority. Middle Classes, Politics, Violence and Memory in the Seventies* (2014), and *Lo que no sabemos de Malvinas. Las islas, su gente y nosotros antes de la guerra* (2022), whose English version will soon be published by Cambridge University Press as *Beyond the War. Argentines and Islanders in an Unknown Falklands*. He is co-editor of *Coups d’État in Cold War Latin America, 1964-1982* (2025).

 

 



###    Kevin Coleman  expand\_more  

Kevin Coleman, Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, is the author of *A Camera in the Garden of Eden* (2016) and co-editor of *Capitalism and the Camera* (2021) and *Coups d’état in Cold War Latin America* (2025). Coleman directed the documentary film *Stolen Photo,* coproduced by Señal Colombia/RTVC, on the 1928 massacre of banana workers in Colombia. He is currently writing a book on Óscar Romero’s life and legacy.

 

 



###    Steven Levitsky  expand\_more  

**Steven Levitsky** is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of *How Democracies Die*, which was a *New York Times* Best-Seller and was published in 30 languages, and *Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point*. He has written or edited 11 other books, including *Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective* (Cambridge University Press 2003), *Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War* (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and *Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism* (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently working on a book on democratic resilience across the world.

Professor Levitsky has written for *New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, *The Atlantic*, *Foreign Affairs*, and *The New Republic*, and he has been a columnist for *La Republica* (Peru) and *Folha de São Paulo* (Brazil).

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

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