Arturo Valenzuela

Arturo Valenzuela is Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is currently on leave from Georgetown University having been appointed by President Barack Obama to the post of Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the United States Department of State. In that position he is responsible for the foreign policy of the United States towards all of the countries of the Americas.

Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty Dr. Valenzuela was Professor of Political Science and Director of the Council of Latin American Studies at Duke University. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, the University of Sussex, the University of Florence, the University of Chile and the Catholic University of Chile and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude from Drew University and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from Columbia University. He is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Higher Education.

During President William Jefferson Clinton’s second term in office, Dr. Valenzuela served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. In that role he advised the President and the National Security Adviser on foreign, defense, intelligence, economic and other policy issues concerning the Western Hemisphere, managed the formulation and implementation of multilateral and bilateral foreign policy initiatives in the Americas, and directed U.S. responses to regional crises.

Dr. Valenzuela served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs in the United States Department of State in the first Clinton Administration. A White House political appointee, he was named to the Senior Executive Service of the United States of America. His responsibilities included global issues (democracy, environment, human rights, migration and refugees) for the Americas and the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy toward Mexico. For his diplomatic contributions, he has been honored with the National Order of the Southern Cross by the government of Brazil and the Order of Boyacá by the government of Colombia.

A specialist on the origins and consolidation of democracy, Latin American politics, electoral systems, civil-military relations, political parties, regime transitions and U.S.-Latin American relations, Dr. Valenzuela is an expert on the politics of Chile, Mexico and the Southern Cone of Latin America. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including Political Brokers in Chile, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile and A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet. His recent work has focused on the consolidation of democracy and the institutional dimensions of democratic governance. With Juan J. Linz he co-authored and edited The Failure of Presidential Democracy. His academic articles have appeared in edited collections and scholarly journals including Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, Estudios Públicos and the Latin American Research Review. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Democracy, Current History, The Latin American Research Review and The Third World Quarterly and has published commentaries in leading newspapers in the United States, Latin America and Europe.

Until his appointment as Assistant Secretary of State, Dr. Valenzuela served on the board of directors of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), as well as the board of trustees of Drew University and Santiago College, in Santiago, Chile. He was also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Institut des Ameriques in Paris, France and served on the advisory board of America’s Watch. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and several academic societies.

A former adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dr. Valenzuela also has served as a consultant to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the House Foreign Relations Committee and the Sub-Committee on Commerce State and Justice of the House Appropriations Committee. He has been an adviser on political, electoral and constitutional reform in Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia. Dr. Valenzuela has served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, Freedom House and other organizations. He has been an international advisor to Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, L.L.P., a leading international law firm.

His media appearances have included ABC’s Nightline, NBC's Today Show, The CBS Evening News, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, CNN Crossfire, CNN Choque de Opiniones, CNN International, CNN Spanish, BBC Television, Fox News, Univisión, C-Span, National Public Radio (All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Talk of the Nation, Day to Day, The World, To The Point, Fresh Air), BBC World Service, and other broadcasting outlets in the United States, Latin America and Europe.