PLACA PANEL | Leading a New Global Political & Economic Order: From Public Administrators to Leaders

The Program on Latin America and the Caribbean and the De Sardon-Glass Fellows Program at the Moynihan Institute will host a Policy Dialogue Panel and Breakout Lab.

The goal of this event is to foster a space for strategic reflection and collaborative thinking on how Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) governments can exercise agency, build strategic coalitions, and design governance innovations as proactive actors in the new global political and economic order. Topics will include U.S. multipolarity and Latin America’s strategic position, global economic realignment and social rights in LAC, and recent civil-military developments in Mexico in relation to broader global economic shifts.

Speakers

• Gladys McCormack, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico–U.S. Relations and professor of history 
• Lionel Johnson, professor of practice of public administration and international affairs
• María Laura Veramendi García, Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department

Organizers

• Claudia Reto ’25 De Sardon Glass Fellow/’26 E.M.P.A.
• Austen Canal ’26 M.P.A./M.A. (IR)
• Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, with the support of the De Sardon Glass Fellowship and the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean (PLACA) at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Gladys McCormick is the Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico–U.S. Relations and a professor of history at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She also served a six-year term as a senior associate at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. Her scholarship centers on the political and economic history of Latin America and the Caribbean, with particular attention to political violence and organized crime. 

Lionel C. Johnson has been president of the Pacific Pension & Investment Institute since July 2014, guiding the organization’s mission to bring together global investment leaders to discuss the challenges faced by institutional investors in Asia, the Pacific Rim and around the world. Currently serves as a professor of practice of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, as the chairman of the sustainable chemical startup Sudoc, and as a board member of the RAND Corporation, SkyTruth and Oxfam America. 

María Laura Veramendi García is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department at Syracuse University. She holds an M.P.A. from the Maxwell School and a licentiate degree in sociology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Her research examines the comparative political economy of social policy in Latin America, with particular attention to business power and the policy legacies of authoritarian rule in shaping social policy processes and the realization of social rights.