Expert Bio

Dr. Cynthia J. Arnson is a Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former director of its Latin American Program. She is also an adjunct professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She is a widely recognized expert on Latin American politics and international relations, including U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. She is quoted frequently in major U.S. and Latin American media and has testified on multiple occasions before committees of the U.S. Congress.

Arnson is a member of the editorial advisory board of Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, the Spanish-language edition of the distinguished journal Foreign Affairs. She is also a member of the advisory boards of Human Rights Watch/Americas and the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUSADES). Arnson served as associate director of HRW/Americas 1990-1994, covering Colombia and Central America.  

Arnson is editor or co-editor of multiple highly regarded books published by major university presses. These include Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America (Stanford University Press, 1999, now in its third printing); In the Wake of War: Democratization and Internal Armed Conflict in Latin America (Stanford, 2012); (with I. William Zartman) Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed (Johns Hopkins University, 2005); and (with Carlos de la Torre) Latin American Populism in the Twenty-First Century (Johns Hopkins, 2013). She is the author of Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America, 1976-1993 (Penn State, 2d edition, 1993) and her articles have been published by Foreign Affairs, Americas Quarterly, Latin Trade, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. 

Her publications at the Wilson Center have covered the Andean region (especially Colombia and Venezuela), Central America, Argentina, and issues ranging from democratic transitions to combatting corruption, human rights, the fight against organized crime, and U.S. policy in Latin America.   

Arnson served as an assistant professor of international relations at American University's School of International Service from 1989 to1991.  As a foreign policy aide in the House of Representatives during the Carter and Reagan administrations, she participated in the national debates over U.S. policy and human rights in Central and South America. 

Arnson graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and has an M.A. in Latin American Studies and International Economics and a Ph.D. in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Wilson Center Project

“Political Economy and Governance in Latin America” 

Major Publications

• Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed, coeditor with I. William Zartman (Woodrow Wilson Center Press and The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005)
• Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America, editor (Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 1999)
• Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America, 1976-1993 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993)