Michael Shifter

Michael Shifter "is vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue. Since 1993, he has been adjunct professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he teaches Latin American politics. Shifter writes and talks widely on U.S.-Latin American relations and hemispheric affairs. His recent articles have appeared in major U.S. and Latin American publications such as The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Journal of Democracy, Harvard International Review, Clarin, O Estado de S. Paulo, and Cambio, and he is co-editor, along with Jorge Domínguez, of Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He is also a contributing editor to Current History. Since 1996, he has frequently testified before Congress about U.S. policy towards Latin America. Prior to joining the Inter-American Dialogue, Shifter directed the Latin American and Caribbean program at the National Endowment for Democracy and, before that, the Ford Foundation's governance and human rights program in the Andean region and Southern Cone where he was based in Lima, Peru, and subsequently, in Santiago, Chile."

In the mid-1980s, Shifter "was a Representative in Brazil with the Inter-American Foundation, where he also worked in the Office of Research and Evaluation." Shifter is "a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Latin American Studies Association." "He serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch/Americas Division, and the Advisory Board of the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University." 

Shifter "has recently [2001] consulted for the Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, Agency for International Development, Oxfam America, and Swedish Ecumenical Action. In 2000, Mr. Shifter directed an independent task force on US policy towards Colombia, organized by the Dialogue and the Council on Foreign Relations and co-chaired by Senator Bob Graham (D-Fl) and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft. Mr. Shifter is regularly interviewed by a variety of both US and Latin American media, and often appears on CNN International (English and Spanish). Since 1996, he has testified on six occasions before Congress about US policy towards Latin America." 


 * Directed the Independent Task Force on Columbia
 * Former International Advisory Board member, Center of Legal and Social Studies
 * Faculty, Georgetown University Center for Latin American Studies