UNM Student Wins ASCE First Prize for Graduate Paper on Cuban Political Signs

December 1, 2011

The Latin American & Iberian Institute (LAII) is pleased to announce that Max Fitzpatrick, PhD candidate in the UNM Department of Sociology, has earned first prize in the graduate student category in the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) 2011 student paper competition. Fitzpatrick will receive a small stipend and have his winning paper, "The Graphic Generation of Revolution," included in the upcoming edition of the ASCE Annual Proceedings, Cuba in Transition.

For over twenty years, the ASCE has worked to create a forum for systematic thinking on the political economy and economic development in Cuba. ASCE's non-partisan, empirically-driven analysis is one of the few sources of modern thinking on Cuba's political economy. ASCE strives to bring to the fore an evidence-based policy dialogue, as is the case for other emerging and transition economies, and should be the case in Cuba. As part of its efforts, the ASCE annually sponsors a prize, consisting of a small stipend, for the best undergraduate and graduate paper on Cuban economic issues. Winning papers are included as part of the Annual Proceedings, a publication widely used inside and outside of Cuba by universities, research center, government agencies, and others.

Since the time of its founding in 1990, the primary mission of the ASCE has been to study the elements and processes involved in a transition to a free market economy and a democracy, as well as to promote scholarship, research, and publications on transition studies by its members. This remains its basic charter and ASCE continues to pursue the study of Cuba in a broad sense, with particular emphasis on the financial, economic, social, legal and environmental aspects of Cuba today and its process of transition and reforms. Affiliated with the American Economic Association, the ASCE maintains professional contacts with economists inside Cuba --whether independent or associated with the Cuban government --who are interested in engaging in scholarly discussion and research.

Fitzpatrick earned his BA ('00) from the University of Texas at Austin and his MA (`09) from the LAII's Latin American Studies program. He is currently a PhD student in UNM's Department of Sociology, with areas of academic interest related to social movements and the political sociology of Latin America. Fitzpatrick's field research in Cuba has been funded in part by the LAII's Field Research Grants.