Joseph S. Tulchin

Who is Joseph S. Tulchin?

Joe Tulchin is a Latin Americanist with extraordinarily broad experience. He is a widely published research scholar and a successful teacher as well as an effective participant in the public policy process.

He is known throughout the hemisphere for his work on hemispheric security and international affairs, citizen security and police reform, reducing inequality and the governance of cities. He spent 25 years teaching — first at Yale and then at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — and then for 16 years directed a program of public policy research on Latin America, as part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

He is equally adept at political risk analysis for corporate or private sector clients as he is at public policy analysis for senior government officials or multilateral organizations. While at the Wilson Center, he directed teams of experts who made specific policy proposals to governments in the region to reduce crime and violence, to re-formulate national security policies, and prepared guidelines for the several governments on how to use social policy to reduce inequality. Over the years, Tulchin worked closely with the Organization of American States on hemispheric security, with the World Bank on police reform, and with the United Nations on urban governance. He is currently on the advising board of Social Enterprise Associates and the Hemispheric Security Issues Task Force at the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami.

Tulchin is currently a Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, where he is writing a book on United States Relations with Central America. The book explains the historical origins of how the nations of Central America approach their roles in the international community and the origins of U.S. hegemony in the region. He also is studying the ways in which the transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes in the region affect the ability of each country to take a proactive role in world affairs.

He recently joined the team of experts at Geopolitical Information Service, a European website on international affairs. You can follow his work and the work of the other experts at geopolitical-info.com.

The results of his research have been disseminated widely through publications — more than 60 books and 100 refereed articles or book chapters — through policy bulletins and reports delivered into the hands of decision makers and stakeholders in the policy process, through briefings for senior government officials from Washington to Buenos Aires and Santiago.

Please click here for a full list of Tulchin's administrative and teaching experience.

Most Recent Publications

• In April, Tulchin participated in a strategic thinking exercise on the nature of the world's cities in the year 2030, conducted by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Experts from around the world spoke about technology, populations changes, information, disaster response and infrastructure issues. Tulchin's paper dealt with public policies that aimed at including elements of the urban population now marginalized either in political, economic, or social terms. Inclusion is the key to modulated forces creating instability in the urban context, especially crime, drug trafficking, economic inequality and discrimination. For the text of the paper, click here.
• Taking a look at crime and violence from a different perspective, Tulchin prepared a paper for the journal Debates, published in Caracas by IESA In this paper, he reviews how the concern with citizen insecurity became a major political issue after the transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. He summarizes efforts to reform the police and judiciary in the past two decades as the most frequent public policy response to insecurity. He offers suggestions for more effective policies to reduce insecurity and combat crime. The paper ends with a discussion of how the increasingly organized and international nature of crime in Latin America makes formulating effective policies more complicated. The English version of the Crime paper can be found here.
• Tulchin is quoted in a Time Magazine piece about president Obama's visit to El Salvador.
• An article entitled A New U.S. Policy Toward Latin America? was published by the University of Miami Center for Hemispheric Policy. The article may also be read online at Seguridad con Democracia.
• Tulchin made an appearance on an NPR show last Friday, March 17, The Takeaway. He was discussing President Obama's trip to Latin America. You can hear him by searching the archives at The Takeaway website.
• An article entitled The Strategic Culture of Chile was recently published in Revista del CESLA
  
• Acciones que tienen consequencias was published in La Nacion, March 5th 2011. Please click here for an English version.
• An article entitled Thinking Ahead on UNASUR was recently published in DEF, a journal of intenational relations based in Buenos Aires.

click here for highlights of his bibliography, and here for a complete list of publications.

Recent Postings
at GIS

Argentine elections
Brazil as a regional power

Upcoming Postings
at GIS

Mexican elections
China in Latin America

Upcoming Engagements

Tulchin has been appointed Croxton Lecturer at Amherst College for the Spring Semester. He will be teaching a course on "Latin America in the World" and delivering a public lecture during his residence at the College.

He will deliver a public lecture on Latin America on February 3 at the MBL in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

On February 14 he will deliver a public lecture on Latin America and Its Discontents at Plymouth State University.

Recent Speaking Engagements

In November he taught two graduate seminars, first at the Catholic University of Cordoba on "Democracy and Its Discontents in Latin America"; and then, in Buenos Aires, at the Universidad del Salvador, on "Relations between the United States and Latin America."

In October Tulchin visited Santiago, Chile, and gave lectures at the National Diplomatic Academy and the Institute of Politics of the University of Chile

In September, he lectured on Latin America to the Newton Lifetime Learning Institute

Tulchin gave a paper on the Strategic Culture of Panama, at the workshop on Panama conducted by FIU/ARC. His paper will form part of the final report which is available on the website of FIU/ARC.

Current Research

His current writing projects are:

• a history of United States relations with Latin America.
• the foreign policy of Argentina since the return to democracy in 1983.
• the causes of inequality in Latin America.

He continues to form part of public policy research networks on hemispheric security, crime and violence, and social policy.

 

Contact

If you would like to discuss a research project, would like him to write an opinion piece, deliver a speech or participate in a conference, please contact
joe.tulchin @ gmail.com.