In June 2024, Mexicans will head to the ballot box to elect a new president, 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies, and 128 senators. The front running presidential candidates are Claudia Sheinbaum, of MORENA, the party of the current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor, and Xóchitl Gálvez, senator from the opposition alliance Frente Amplio. Early polling shows a strong lead for Sheinbaum, who recently served as the mayor of Mexico City. Both candidates offer distinct visions for the country that faces many challenges, such as increased political polarization, corruption, and lack of equal access to economic opportunities. At the same time, shifting geopolitics offer Mexico an opportunity for economic growth as tense U.S.-China relations revive interest in nearshoring and the reevaluation of global value chains. In this context, the Georgetown Americas Institute welcomed Jorge Castañeda for a discussion on the alternative paths Mexico faces following the results of the 2024 presidential and legislative elections. The conversation was moderated by Josep Colomer, associate researcher at the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University.
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Jorge Castañeda Gutman was foreign minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003. He is a renowned public intellectual, political scientist, and prolific writer, with an interest in Mexican and Latin American politics, comparative politics and U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Latin American relations. Castañeda received a B.A. from Princeton University and a B.A. from Université de Paris-I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), an M.A. from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, and his Ph.D. in economic history from the Université de Paris-I. He taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and New York University. Castañeda has more than 15 books published in the United States and around the world. He is a regular columnist for Revista Nexos and El País. He was appointed global distinguished professor of political science and Latin American studies at New York University and was elected foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and International Member of the American Philosophical Society.
Josep M. Colomer is a scholar, professor, and author in political science and political economy. Colomer was a professor at Georgetown University, where he is now an associate researcher at its BMW Center for German and European Studies. He is also a current associate researcher at the Institute for Political and Social Studies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His areas of expertise include democratization, political institutions, forms of government, electoral and voting systems, the European Union, United States politics, and global political institutions. Colomer is the author or editor of 26 books in six languages and about 200 academic articles and book chapters, as well as several hundred op-ed articles published by newspapers in several countries. He was a founding member of the Spanish Political Science Association (AECPA), a life member of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and an elected member of the Academia Europaea.
