Denise Dresser will evaluate the limitations of the Calderon governments war on drugs and how the current climate of insecurity explains the renewed electoral strength and political renaissance of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). She will also address the characteristics of Mexicos dysfunctional political economy that explain why the country seems condemned to muddle through, instead of undertaking substantive reforms that would assure greater equality and growth.

Denise Dresser is a professor of Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) where she has taught comparative politics, political economy and Mexican politics since 1991. She writes a political column for the Mexican newspaper Reforma and the news weekly Proceso and was the host of the political talk shows Entreversiones and El País de Uno on Mexican television.

http://clas.berkeley.edu/