Carlos Portugal Gouvêa
![[candidate photo]](picture.jpg)
S.J.D. Candidate
Graduate Fellow, Teaching Assistant, Perspectives of American Law
Teaching Fellow, Harvard College, The Public and the Private in Politics, Morality and Law
| Phone: | (617) 493-9366 |
| Status: | In Residence |
| Email: | cgouvea@law.harvard.edu |
Dissertation
Material Democracy: Legal and Institutional Innovation in Latin America
The objective of my thesis is to demonstrate that legal analysis of institutional reforms must include an evaluation of its distributive impacts on society if we take into account that the greatest challenge faced by democracy in Latin America nowadays is its extreme economic inequality. This kind of evaluation can not only avoiding the implementation of reforms that will increase inequality, but they can also have a transformative effect, creating possibilities for institutional innovations that can, at the same time, strengthen democracy and stimulate economic development. To achieve this objective, I proposed the hypothesis that the weakness of the democratic process causes the negative distributive effects of laws. In societies with high inequalities, the weakness of democracy is not only caused by limited participation on political process, but also by the use of concentrated economic power to influence political decisions, creating a cycle that perpetuates inequality.
Fields of Research and Supervisors
- Law and Development, with Professor David Kennedy, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
- Democratic Analysis of Law, with Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Harvard Law School
- International Economic Law, with Professor William Alford, Harvard Law School
- Theory of Institutional Development, with Professor Frederick Schauer, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Additional Research Interests
- International Finance Law
- Theory of Democracy
- Corruption and Good Governance
Education
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2004-Present
- Harvard Law School, LL.M. 2004, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
- Universidade de São Paulo, LL.B. 2001, São Paulo, Brasil
Appointments and Fellowships
- Harvard Law School, 2004-2005, Graduate Program Fellow, Teaching Assistant
- Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2004, Teaching Fellow
- Universidade de São Paulo Law School, 2003, Teaching Assistant, Constitutional Law
Representative Publications
- Carlos Portugal Gouvêa, The Third Bank of the River: Democracy and its Corruption after Liberalization Reforms in Latin America (2004) (on file at Harvard Law School Library).
Additional Information
- LL.M. Paper - The Third Bank of the River
- Languages: English (fluent), Portuguese (native)