Founded in 1982 with the support of philanthropist Albert Bildner, the Center was re-inaugurated under the leadership of Mauricio Font in the 1999-2000 academic year.
The Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies is an interdisciplinary forum for scholars, policy makers, and civil society leaders working on contemporary issues in the Americas. Founded in 1982 with the support of philanthropist Albert Bildner, the Center was re-inaugurated under the leadership of Mauricio Font in the 1999-2000 academic year.
Our Mission
The Center is dedicated to promoting understanding and policy-oriented research concerning governability, human security and economic well-being of communities in the Western Hemisphere.
The Center sponsors:
- Research
- Conferences , Lectures, and Seminars
- Publications
- Film Series
- Book Presentations
- Public Fourms
Projects created by the Bildner Center
Transitions and Reform Processes in a Global Context
The dynamics of economic development and reform in Latin America and the western hemisphere at large have changed considerably since structural reforms in the 1980’s in the context of turmoil due debt crisis, high inflation, and the collapse of authoritarian regimes. At present, countries face increasing pressure to liberalize their economies amidst turbulent capital markets and transient financial investments. Reform efforts continue. As democratic regimes consolidate in the region, policymakers focus on the complex issues of judicial and tax reform, the strengthening of local governance structures, and the development of broader conceptions of citizen participation and social welfare.
Human and Social Capital
Moving from a substantive investigation of governmental reform processes, the Bildner Center fosters dialogue on specific issues of social equity and poverty reduction. Recent work on human and social capital focuses on the importance of networks, informal institutions, and families in fomenting economic growth and social opportunity. There are a number of policy issues and factors shaping social development: labor markets and migration, urban and demographic dynamics, civil society and the non-profit sector, democratic institution-building, ideas, religious practice, and social responsibility.
Democratic Governance and Human Security
Human security sits at the intersection of economic needs, environmental standards, access to basic health care, and living in a state that secures basic civil freedoms and protection from organized violence. The ever-evolving process of good, accountable governance is central to both establishing democracy and providing security. This program area focuses on recent developments in the study policing, crime, corruption, organized violence, and the underlying social considerations that contribute to these problems. Our work here focuses understanding these phenomena and offering meaningful short-term and long-term solutions to the security challenges facing the region.
Transnational Communities
A number of scholars and civil society activists devote attention to the role of transnational and transcultural communities, those individuals and groups who live and travel between national boundaries and cultural spheres. The Bildner Center has developed a number of programs on the dissemination of ideas, knowledge and cultural processes. This program area examines these discursive and dynamic exchanges through the agency of individuals and communities in transition. Transnational community political participation, in countries of origin and destination, is increasingly important to social, political, and economic life. Apart from political organizations and affiliations, transnational communities have a growing impact on regional finances. Remittances to family members across Latin America and the Caribbean have become a major, and largely undocumented, component of national economies. There is an increasing demand for scholarly and policy attention to this issue.
Global Cooperation and Regional Integration
The Bildner Center has long recognized the importance of the increased level of regional integration in the western hemisphere as a result of new bilateral and sub-regional trade agreements and a general convergence of monetary policy. Such accords reflect increased levels of cooperation and interdependence affecting financial, security, and development policy. The United States military has long had great influence in Latin America and the Caribbean both through ongoing collaborations between military forces and through direct interventions. In recent years, however, Latin American armed forces have developed more expansive regional roles through international humanitarian interventions such as the ongoing United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Non-state actors have played an increasingly important role in developing normative standards for such isues as the rights of women, indigenous populations and minority groups of the Americas. Together these new set sets of actions and activities have begun to have major effects on Inter-American relations.
Founder
Albert Bildner
Albert Bildner was a successful businessman and philanthropist. Born in New York in 1915, he was educated through high school there. A 1937 B.A. graduate from Yale University, he served in the United States Navy during World War II as a Lt. Commander. Following the war, Mr. Bildner attended Yale Graduate School from 1945-46, studying Spanish Literature and Drama.
After operating a family-owned chain of supermarkets in Long Island, Mr. Bildner left in 1948 to start a chain of supermarkets in Venezuela for the Rockefeller Brothers (International Basic Economy Corporation), the first in South America. Subsequently, he became an importer and food business consultant in Venezuela.
Mr. Bildner resided in Brazil from 1959-76, first as President of Crown Cork and Seal do Brasil; and later as founder of his own business, DRURY’s S/A. That venture, started in 1960 with an investment of just $10,000, became the largest spirits business in Latin America with annual sales in excess of $100,000,000 throughout South America, Europe and Asia. In 1973 he sold the business to Heublein Inc., and remained as a consultant until 1976.
In 1977 Mr. Bildner joined the not-for-profit Business Marketing Corporation for New York City, where he served as President from 1978 until 1979. In August 1978 he was appointed Special Ambassador by President Carter to attend the Inauguration of the President of Colombia.
In 1982 he established and funded the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York. Since 1980, Mr. Bildner served on the Board of Visitors, now the Board of Trustees, of The Graduate Center. On May 26, 1994 he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the school.
Albert Bildner also served on the boards of numerous educational and cultural institutions including: Americas Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, Acción International, the Weitzman Institute of Science, Ben Gurion University and the American Place Theatre. For over three decades, he funded the Bildner Awards in Spanish and Portuguese Literature and a Travel Grant to Brazil at Yale University.
He spoke and read Spanish, Portuguese, and French fluently. Together with his wife Lin Bildner, they ran the Albert and Lin Bildner Foundation. Albert and Lin Bildner, along with their son Max, resided in New York City. He passed away in June of 2012.
Director
Mauricio Font
Mauricio Font is director of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies and Professor of sociology at the Graduate Center and Queens College, City University of New York.
His research examines problems of development and reform in Brazil, Cuba and Latin America as well as international cooperation in the Western Hemisphere with particular attention to reform processes in Latin America. Professor Font published The State and the Private Sector in Latin America (Palgrave) in June 2015 and ebooks on Cuba.
Font’s publications on Brazil include Coffee and Transformation in São Paulo, Brazil (Lexington Books, 2010), Transforming Brazil: A Reform Era in Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), Coffee, Contention, and Change (Basil Blackwell, 1990), and Brazilian Statism: Rise and Limits (forthcoming). He is also co-editor of The Brazilian State: Debate and Agenda (Lexington Books 2011), Reforming Brazil (Lexington Books/Bildner Western Hemisphere Series, 2004), and Café e Política: Ação da Elite Cafeeira na Política Paulista 1920-1930 (1988, Rev. 2010). Professor Font also edited and introduced Charting a New Course: The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), a volume with twenty-six essays by Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
His publications on Cuba include several co-edited volumes: Handbook of Contemporary Cuba: Economy, Politics, Civil Society, and Globalization (Paradigm Press, 2013), Handbook on Cuban History, Literature, and the Arts (Paradigm Press, 2014), Cuban Counterpoints: The Legacy of Fernando Ortiz (Lexington Books, 2005), La República Cubana y José Martí (1902-2002) (Lexington Books, 2005), Toward a New Cuba? (Lynne Rienner, 1997) and Integración económica y democratización: América Latina y Cuba (Instituto de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad de Chile, 1998). He has also organized several online volumes, including Reformando el modelo económico cubano (2014), Changing Cuba in a Changing World (2008), Cuba: In transition? Pathways to Renewal, Long-term Development and Global Reintegration (2006), Cuba Today: Continuity and Change since the ‘Periodo Especial’ (2004).
Professor Font has also published other essays on Latin America, the North American Free Trade Agreement and US-Latin America relations, and the comparative-historical study of development trajectories in settler societies. He is regularly interviewed by the US and inernational TV, radio and print news media.
He has taught at the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, the University of Brasilia, IUPERJ, and UNESP. He earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Michigan.
After operating a family-owned chain of supermarkets in Long Island, Mr. Bildner left in 1948 to start a chain of supermarkets in Venezuela for the Rockefeller Brothers (International Basic Economy Corporation), the first in South America. Subsequently, he became an importer and food business consultant in Venezuela.
Mr. Bildner resided in Brazil from 1959-76, first as President of Crown Cork and Seal do Brasil; and later as founder of his own business, DRURY’s S/A. That venture, started in 1960 with an investment of just $10,000, became the largest spirits business in Latin America with annual sales in excess of $100,000,000 throughout South America, Europe and Asia. In 1973 he sold the business to Heublein Inc., and remained as a consultant until 1976.
In 1977 Mr. Bildner joined the not-for-profit Business Marketing Corporation for New York City, where he served as President from 1978 until 1979. In August 1978 he was appointed Special Ambassador by President Carter to attend the Inauguration of the President of Colombia.
In 1982 he established and funded the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York. Since 1980, Mr. Bildner served on the Board of Visitors, now the Board of Trustees, of The Graduate Center. On May 26, 1994 he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the school.
Albert Bildner also served on the boards of numerous educational and cultural institutions including: Americas Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, Acción International, the Weitzman Institute of Science, Ben Gurion University and the American Place Theatre. For over three decades, he funded the Bildner Awards in Spanish and Portuguese Literature and a Travel Grant to Brazil at Yale University.
He spoke and read Spanish, Portuguese, and French fluently. Together with his wife Lin Bildner, they ran the Albert and Lin Bildner Foundation. Albert and Lin Bildner, along with their son Max, resided in New York City. He passed away in June of 2012.
The non-partisan and multi-disciplinary center sponsors:
- Public forums for dialogue, debate and sharing ideas via lectures, film series and expert panels
- A community of scholarship through seminars and conferences, including a conference of over 100 presentations on the legacy of Alexander Von Humbolt and a ground-breaking conference on “Cuba Futures” in 2011
- Special events with political leaders of the Americas, such as the one with president Lula of Brazil
- Expert research through its publications, including an in-house book series with four existing titles and collaborative publications with major publishing houses
