Center for Global Democracy Awarded $12.5 million from USAID
The College of Arts and Science’s Center for Global Democracy has been awarded $12.5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand its research on democratic governance in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The funds will be dispersed over the next five years to support activities related to the AmericasBarometer survey, a biennial study of more than two dozen countries in the Western Hemisphere through a citizen survey of social and political attitudes. The funds will also support other surveys on public attitudes about democracy and governance across Latin America and the Caribbean.
“This grant is core to our work. We would not be able to support the AmericasBarometer without it, and that project is the cornerstone of the Center for Global Democracy,” said Noam Lupu, director of the center and professor of political science. “This award allows us to continue to innovate and to remain at the frontier of both international survey methods and the study of democracy. It recognizes the important work we’ve been doing over the last 20 years and our reputation as a preeminent center for excellence in these fields, and at the same time, provides critical funding to allow us to do more and make new discoveries.”
Lupu said the center’s reputation contributed to the success in receiving the USAID award. The new Center for Global Democracy is an expansion of LAPOP Lab, which was founded in 2004 by the late Mitchell Seligson and led for the past ten years by Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science Elizabeth Zechmeister.
“We are always looking to innovate and expand the reach of our work, and that is certainly something that we’ll be doing with this funding,” Lupu said. “We hope to expand the scope of the AmericasBarometer survey to include new, relevant topics, and to extend its reach through our new efforts to disseminate and localize.”