Box 1916

Maxcy Hall

112 George Street

Providence, RI 02912

Telephone: (401) 863-2367

Sociology@brown.edu

 

M.A. in Sociology, Brown University

Contact Information:
Brown University
Department of Sociology
Box 1916
Providence, RI 02912
Cell: (650) 392-4455
Fax: (401) 863-3213
Celso_Villegas@brown.edu

Year of Entry: 2003

Previous Degrees:
M.A. in Sociology, Brown University 2005
B.A. Sociology, summa cum laude, Connecticut College 2003

Areas of Interest:
Comparative History, Political Sociology, Development, Latin America

My work reflects my core interests in comparative history, political sociology, and democracy and development. In my Master’s thesis, I explored the state of democracy in three Andean countries – Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela – in light of neoliberalism, indigenous and informal sector movements, and the decline of organized labor. In a paper I presented at the 2006 meeting of the ASA, I argued that social and economic inequalities on Native American reservations are the product of a path-dependent process that embedded a corporatist welfare regime the national liberal welfare state. I also recently co-authored a book chapter with James Mahoney on historical enquiry in comparative politics.

In my dissertation, I revisit the relationship between the middle class and democracy in the developing world through a comparative and historical analysis of the Philippines, Venezuela, and Ecuador. In all three cases, weak formal political institutions have led to a “crisis of democracy” and popular protests against democratically-elected presidents. I ask, “why in the Philippines in 2001 and Ecuador in 2005 did protesters explicitly act in the name of the ‘middle class’, while in Venezuela in 2002, they did not?” While previous literature sees the developing world middle class either as democracy’s savior, its worst enemy, or a scheming rational actor, I focus instead on the unexplored relationship between middle-class formation and democracy to answer my question. I will be in the field during the 2007-2008 academic year, collecting data for this project.