Welcome. I am professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at The University of Scranton. Like everyone in the Department, I teach several required political science classes, including U.S. Politics, Political Science Research, and Comparative Government, as well as specialized upper-division courses, such as Latin American Politics, U.S. - Latin American Relations, and September 11, 2001 and Beyond. 

My primary research focuses on the transitions of former guerrilla groups to political parties in Central America, especially the FMLN in El Salvador and URNG in Guatemala. I've also written on the United States' relationship with Central and South America. 

I have prepared expert witness testimony for over one hundred Guatemalan and Salvadoran asylum seekers. 

If you are looking for blog posts I wrote, you can search the archive on the right. 

  1. I have an op-ed at The Globe Post that looks at what we can expect from the Giammattei administration in Guatemala.
    Giammattei will also have to contend with how weak the state has become in the last four years. Morales disobeyed Constitutional Court’s rulings, oversaw a remilitarization of the police and the replacement of its professionals, and undermined the free press and access to information. In another concerning move, the attorney general does not appear to have any interest in taking advantage of the expertise of those Guatemalans who had worked with CICIG for the last several years.
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  2. Unfortunately, the evidence would seem to indicate that Alejandro Giammattei’s presidency will be much like that of his predecessor, Jimmy Morales. In case you are interested in some of my thoughts from Sunday's election in Guatemala, you can read what I had to say in these recent news stories.

    Guatemalans worry about graft after Giammattei wins election. Associated Press. Sonia Perez (August 12).

    Michael Allison on Guatemala's economic outlook with incoming president. CGTN America. Roee Ruttenberg (August 12).

    Guatemala’s new president faces U.S. challenges on migration. Catholic News Service. David Agren (August 12).

    Guatemala elects right-wing president amid dismal turnout. Washington Post. Sandra Cuffe (August 12).
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  3. Sorry about the lack of posts for the last several months. I've been busy with teaching and chair responsibilities, hosting the Jesuit Universities Humanitarian Action Network (JUHAN) Conference, and providing expert witness testimony for Salvadoran and Guatemala clients. I hope to get back to the blog in the fall but we will see what happens. Anyway, I am off to Guatemala on Sunday to attend the Guatemala Scholars Network conference in Antigua. 
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  4. I spoke with CNN about Nayib Bukele's recently election in El Salvador. Most of what I said can be heard in the SECOLAS podcast recorded last week.
    "Bukele's considered a populist, an outsider candidate who ran against the system. He says that he comes from the left, but he had to join a political party of the right to run."
    There's an effort to try to place Bukele in the overall context of Latin America. The two terms most frequently used to describe him seem to be "outsider" and "independent." He is a two-term mayor, including one term as mayor of the capital for the FMLN. He was expelled from the FMLN and then had to look for an electoral vehicle to allow him to campaign and win in 2019. His election to the presidency didn't come out of the blue but it was difficult to guess the eventual path.

    While he headed the GANA ticket, Bukele has no interest in representing GANA. He has his own Nuevas Ideas party to build. At the same time, GANA does not appear to have any interest in making Bukele their own either. Both parties say that they did not engage in any quid pro quo prior to or during the campaign. However, GANA's Will Salgado thinks that he and Bukele agreed that GANA and Nuevas Ideas would form a coalition to support him in the 2021 San Miguel mayoral elections.

    It is unclear whether any other side deals were made and too early to tell what the two parties' relationship might look like the next two years before the mayoral and legislative elections. Bukele doesn't have much legislative support and even if he did work with GANA legislators it wouldn't be enough. Fortunately for Bukele, his overwhelming victory might make the FMLN and/or ARENA more likely to work with him so as to build some momentum before 2021. At this point, obstructing Bukele's legislative agenda doesn't appear to have much upside.
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  5. I spoke with Steven Hyland and Carlos Dimas yesterday about this past weekend's election in El Salvador. Carlos and Stephen host a podcast for the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies.
    In this episode, professor of political science Michael Allison discusses  the February 3, 2019 presidential election in El Salvador. With Nayib Bukele from the GANA party emerging as the victor, Bukele is the first candidate since the end of the Civil War not from the two dominant political parties. Allison offers what this election means for not only El Salvador and Latin America, but the Americas as a whole. 
    You can listen to our discussion here.
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  6. Elizabeth Oglesby has some fascinating stories on the leadership of Central American migrants in several labor initiatives in the United States in a recent Conversation article with How Central American migrants helped revive the US labor movement.
    In the United States’ heated national debate about immigration, two views predominate about Central American migrants: President Donald Trump portrays them as a national security threat, while others respond that they are refugees from violence.
    Little is said about the substantial contributions that Central Americans have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years.
    For one, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants have helped expand the U.S. labor movement, organizing far-reaching workers rights’ campaigns in migrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.
    Check it out.
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  7. I published some commentary on what is going on in Central America recently in the Hill with Losing the fight against corruption and narco-trafficking in Guatemala. Protests are helping but without a clear statement from the US it is difficult to see the Morales government softening its stance against CICIG. Unfortunately, nothing that the Morales government has said or done leads one to believe that their only concern is with Velasquez or CICIG. They've sought to dismantle the PNC leadership and Constitutional Court.

    Unfortunately, my submission was revised in a way that I did not support. I tried to hold off sharing the op-ed until some revisions were made to it. I didn't learn of these revisions until after the article went live. Because the more problematic revisions were done by a university consultant and not Hill editors, the Hill hasn't been enthusiastic about making the revision. They did change the error on their part. I've asked for additional changes to be made or for the article to be taken down. (Update: On Sunday afternoon, the most problematic paragraph was deleted.)

    Here is what is posted, which is not what happened and not what I wrote.
    In August, in a move to intimidate the American ambassador who supports CICIG, Morales stated that U.S.-donated jeeps should not be used to drive the streets of the capitol, but rather “for the purpose of combatting criminal activity and narcotics trafficking, with a focus on Guatemala’s borders.”
    And here is what I originally submitted.
    Finally, Guatemala also sought to intimidate the United States in August when several U.S.-donated jeeps were seen near the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City when President Morales announced that CICIG’s mandate would not be renewed. According to the Embassy, these jeeps were to be used “for the purpose of combatting criminal activity and narcotics trafficking, with a focus on Guatemala’s borders.” They should not have been driving the streets of the capital. The move was widely perceived as a move to “intimidate the American ambassador, who publicly supports Cicig.”
    The paragraph needed some revision but the revisions made changed the meaning of Morales' actions. There was also some heavy editing of the following paragraph. This is what is published.
    But the most important people to consider regarding the future of CICIG is the Guatemalan people. Guatemala is one of the hemisphere’s poorer countries, with alarming numbers of indigenous and rural people living in extreme poverty.
    Guatemalans have consistently supported CICIG. Until relatively recently, so has the United States.
    Our government and the international community failed to defend democracy when it came under attack in Honduras and Nicaragua. The people of those two countries continue to suffer the consequences. It is not too late, however, to prevent the reversal of what progress has been made with the assistance of CICIG in Guatemala.
    And here is what I wrote.
    But the most important people to consider regarding the future of CICIG is the Guatemalan people. Guatemala is one of the hemisphere’s poorer countries, with alarming numbers of Indigenous and rural people living in extreme poverty. While the country’s murder rate decreased in 2018, insecurity continues to threaten the day to day existence of too many. Poor economic and security conditions have caused tens of thousands of Guatemalans, many of whom are families and unaccompanied minors, to flee for the United States. One of the bright spots, however, has been CICIG. After several years of attacks by Morales and important members of the political and economic elite to discredit CICIG, Guatemalans continue to demonstrate strong support for the institution. Every time that President Morales has attacked CICIG, the Guatemalan people and Constitutional Court have come to its defense. Until relatively recently, so has the United States.
    The United States and international community failed to successfully defend democracy when it came under attack in Honduras and Nicaragua. The people of those two countries continue to suffer the consequences. It is not too late, however, to prevent the reversal of what progress has been made with the assistance of CICIG in Guatemala.
    Anyway, it still online here.
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  8. On Monday, President Morales and his administration announced that they were ending the CICIG experiment immediately, instead of September of this year. Morales is trying to shut down an institution that is investigating him, his family, and party. There is no reason to believe that Morales is acting out of anything but self-interest. I spoke with the Guardian yesterday about what is going on.

    Earlier this morning, the Constitutional Court blocked Morales' order. Meanwhile, the international community released a lukewarm message defending democracy, the rule of law, and checks and balances.

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  9. While two young Guatemalans have recently died in US Border Patrol custody, the Guatemalan government has remained mostly quiet. The question is why? Elisabeth Malkin at the New York Times tries to get at the answer in Guatemala Cautious on Young Migrants’ Deaths, Wary of Angering U.S. There's really a two-part answer.

    First, the Morales government does not want to further antagonize the United States. In words and deeds, it has successfully lobbied the Trump administration to withdraw its support for the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Day after day, the Morales administration has attacked one of the region's most successful initiatives to battle corruption and impunity. The Guatemalan government recently sought to remove eleven CICIG officials and two of their relatives from the country. The US has remained silent.

    Similarly, the Guatemalan government might not want to jeopardize the lives of one million plus of their compatriots in the US. The Guatemalan people and government rely upon the billions of dollars they return to the country in remittances each year.
    “We have a de facto apartheid society,” said Anita Isaacs, a Guatemala scholar at Haverford College. “This country continues to be almost as racist as it has been historically.”
    The result is that the death of an indigenous child barely registers, she said: “These lives are worth less, and these people are fundamentally invisible.”
    Second, the Guatemalan government's weak response to the deaths of two of their citizens in the US is a reflection of the state's discrimination against the country's indigenous people. Anita's quote captures that sentiment. Felipe was from a Chuj-speaking family while Jakelin was from a Q’eqchi’-speaking family.

    Whatever the reason, President Trump has not held back against Guatemala in his criticism of the region's leaders. It's unclear how much longer the US government will be able to hold out against the president's Twitter threats.
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  10. Initially, I thought that President Trump's call for a border wall could simply be interpreted as a call for greater border security. However, it doesn't really look like that is the case. Sure, he wants more border patrol agents but it is hard to link them to security either because, in terms of apprehensions, the ones we have are not very busy.
    Even with apprehensions at low levels, the President wants to increase the number of agents. For several years now, however, the US has had a very difficult time maintaining current staffing levels, let alone increasing them. After winning a $297 million contract, Accenture has been able to fill two of 5,000 border patrol positions they were hired for. Fortunately, they have only received a few million dollars so far. CBP seems to have already lowered its standards and still can't hire what the president wants.
      
    And then there is the comic that started this post. President Trump wants a wall or fence or something he can call a wall. He might or might not want it to cross the entire 2,000 mile border. However, it's not as simple as building a wall. For the wall to be effective, the US would need to extend roads for the length of the wall. That way agents would be able to patrol the wall in order to apprehend those going over, or under, it. Such an initiative would probably require a great deal more agents than we already have. You would probably need to establish outposts as well, perhaps where agents could stay for a few days. Plus, it's not as if you just build the wall and walk away. The wall and roads would require significant resources each year to maintain.

    Much of the border land is owned by US citizens and tribes. Either it'll be very expensive to purchase the land or those who own it have no interest in selling it. Some of the ranchers I've met with outside Nogales moved out to the border area decades ago to get away from the federal government. They are not really interested in more government now.

    When reporters looked at this issue around the 2016 election, the company best positioned to provide supplies for the wall would be CEMEX, which probably wouldn't go over too well with President Trump or the Mexican people.

    Then there are the environmental costs related to the material used to build and maintain the wall. Migratory patterns would be disrupted and wildlife would suffer. In general, people living along the border don't want additional walls. 

    I honestly don't get why President Trump wants to make enemies of our neighbors and allies. His misunderstanding of the causes and consequences of migration are really powerful. For me, I would rather pursue policies that bring the US and region closer together. That, however, will have to wait until another administration takes office in the White House.
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