Eduardo Clark is Head of Mexico City Government’s Digital Innovation Agency, a ministry-level department, created by former Mexico City mayor and Presidential Candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, in charge of consolidating the City’s digital transformation efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum tasked Mr. Clark with leading the City’s COVID response task force and, most notably, acted as spokesperson for the City Government and head of the City’s vaccination campaign. Mr. Clark also acted as an advisor for Mayor Sheinbaum on a wide range of topics, including public safety, transportation, urban development, health, social policy, and economic development. Additionally, he is currently responsible for the health system government plan for Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidential campaign. Before this role, Mr. Clark was Director General for the Coordination of the National Digital Strategy at the Office of the President of Mexico. To read more about Mr. Clark please click here!
Jessica Zarkin is an Assistant Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. Her research focuses on the politics of law and order, police militarization, and urban security governance in Latin America. It combines observational data, survey experiments, and a range of qualitative methods and has appeared in Perspectives on Politics, The British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. Professor Zarkin is an invited research fellow at the Center for the Study of Security, Intelligence, and Governance (CESIG) at ITAM (Mexico City). She is also an executive committee member for the LASA Defense, Public Security, and Democracy section for 2022-2024. Professor Zarkin graduated with a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University in May 2022 and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from ITAM in 2013. At Claremont McKenna College she teaches courses on comparative, Latin American, and Mexican politics.
Roderic Ai Camp is the Philip McKenna Professor Emeritus of the Pacific Rim at Claremont McKenna College. He serves as a member of the Advisory Board, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Smithsonian Institution. Camp is a member of the Editorial Board of Mexican Studies and an Advisory Editor, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin America. He is a frequent consultant to national and international media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and BBC. He is the author of numerous articles and thirty books on Mexico, seven of which have been designated by Choice as outstanding academic books, and five books on Latin America. His most recent publications include: The Politics in Mexico, The Path of a New Democracy(Oxford University Press, 2020); Mexico, What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2017); The Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics (Oxford University Press, 2012); Mexico, What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2011); Mexican Political Biographies, 1935-2009 (University of Texas Press, 2011); The Metamorphosis of Leadership in a Democratic Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2010). He is the recipient of the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the Mexican Government, the highest honor it can bestow on a foreigner, for his contributions to Mexico.
The 2024 Mexican presidential elections will mark an important milestone in Mexican history. These will be the largest in Mexico’s history. Voters will choose the president, along with the winners of 628 seats in Congress and thousands of local positions. Plus, the country is almost certain to elect its first woman president. What is at stake? Ninety-six million Mexicans face a monumental decision: opt for the continuation of the so-called “Fourth Transformation” or for the established opposition parties that banded together to try to defeat the incumbent MORENA party. Our experts will explore various issues at play, from the political legacy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the main electoral cleavages to how deeply polarized the Mexican electorate is and what we should expect to happen, given its likelihood, if MORENA wins the election..