02/19/2026
The 2026 Michael Baptista Lecture
Crude Tactics:
Venezuela, the U.S. and the Future of Resource Sovereignty in the Americas
with Alejandro Velasco
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 5:30pm
Kaneff Tower Room 519
Keele Campus | York University
Registration: Michael Baptista Lecture 2026 – Fill out form
Reception to Follow
At dawn on January 3, 2026, U.S. forces carried out a dramatic military operation in Caracas, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flying them to New York to face charges including narcoterrorism and weapons offenses. The raid marked the culmination of months of escalating U.S. military pressure and strikes. Yet in the immediate aftermath, much of Maduro’s government remains in place, and, despite early signs of tension, appears to be aligning with U.S. demands over oil and economic policy. This extraordinary moment has sparked urgent questions about the future—and the past—of Venezuela and its relationship with the United States: What became of chavismo after ruling for a quarter century? Are we witnessing a new form of “regime change” or a return to old patterns of U.S. imperialism? And, crucially, what are the prospects for a just, democratic future for Venezuelans when the nation’s sovereignty itself seems in question? Join Professor Alejandro Velasco, historian of modern Venezuela at New York University, for a deep examination of the historical forces that shaped Venezuela’s present and the larger regional and global implications of this pivotal moment.
Alejandro Velasco | New York University | Associate Professor | Gallatin School and the Department of History.
Alejandro is also the Executive Editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas. Before NYU, he taught at Hampshire College, where he was Five College Fellow, and at Duke University. His research in the areas of social movements, urban politics, and democratization has won support from the Social Science Research Council, the Ford and Mellon Foundations, and the American Historical Association, among others, and has appeared in journals including the Hispanic American Historical Review, the Latin American Research Review, Labor, and others. Velasco's first book Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (California 2015), won the 2016 Fernando Coronil Prize for best book on Venezuela, awarded biennially by the Section on Venezuelan Studies of the Latin American Studies Association. His teaching includes interdisciplinary courses on contemporary Latin America, among them seminars on human rights, cultural studies, and urban social movements; historical methods courses on 20th-century revolutions; graduate courses on urban political history and oral history; and workshops with primary and secondary school educators. A frequent media contributor, his editorials and analysis have appeared in NACLA, Nueva Sociedad, The Nation, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Current History, History News Network, BBC History Magazine, and others. Velasco also frequently contributes radio and television commentary in outlets including NPR, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, CBS, France 24, the BBC, and the CBC.
Discussant: Laura Mcdonald | Carleton University | Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy.
She has published numerous articles in journals and edited collections on such issues as the role of non-governmental organizations in development, global civil society, citizenship struggles in Latin America, Canadian development assistance and the political impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She has edited four books: The Politics of Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, Cambridge University Press, 2017 (with Tina Hilgers); North American in Question: Regional Integration in an Era of Economic Turbulence, University of Toronto Press, 2012 (with Jeffrey Ayres); Contentious Politics in North America, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (with Jeffrey Ayres); and Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas: Beyond the Washington Consensus?, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (with Arne Ruckert). She is co-author of Women, Democracy, and Globalization in North America: A Comparative Study. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (with Jane Bayes, Patricia Begne, Laura Gonzalez, Lois Harder, and Mary Hawkesworth), and author of Supporting Civil Society: The Political Impact of NGO Assistance to Central America, Basingstoke, UK and New York City: Macmillan Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Her recent work looks at Canada’s role in Latin America, policies to reduce crime and violence in Mexico City, and transnational activism around human rights in North America.
Moderator: Antulio Rosales | York University | Assistant Professor in the Business and Society Program
Antulio's research focuses on the politics of state and global capital actors’ interactions in the energy sectors of Latin American countries. His recent work focused on the collapse of Venezuela’s rentier economy and the expansion of mining frontiers, of both gold and cryptocurrencies, in a wider context of social and political tension, economic crisis and international sanctions. Dr. Rosales’ new research is concerned with the expansion of emerging financial assets such as cryptocurrencies and their linkage to energy infrastructures and political incentives in the global south. His current research project deals with the infrastructure, energy and policy incentives for the expansion of cryptocurrencies in Venezuela, El Salvador, Argentina and Puerto Rico. Before joining York, Antulio was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick.
