Intellectual Journey – Abraham F. Lowenthal

Last updated 03/28/2024

This Intellectual Journey by the Retired Faculty Association, held on Tuesday, March 26. 2024, featured Professor Emeritus of International Relations , President Emeritus of Pacific Council on International Policy Abraham Lowenthal from USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Abraham Lowenthal is professor emeritus of international relations at the University of Southern California, president emeritus of the Pacific Council on International Policy, adjunct professor of international studies at Brown University’s Watson Institute, and a non-resident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Lowenthal was the founding director of the Inter-American Dialogue and of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin America Program.

Lowenthal’s publications include 14 books, more than 100 journal articles, and nearly 200 newspaper pieces published throughout the United States and abroad. He has written and lectured widely on American foreign policy, Latin American politics, the construction of democratic governance, California’s policy challenges, and the California-Mexico connection.

Expertise

•         Latin American and Caribbean affairs
•         Latin American politics
•         U.S. policy in Mexico, the Caribbean, South America and Central America
•         U.S.-Mexico-Canadian free trade
•         California-Mexico relations
•         U.S. relations with the Pacific Rim
•         Southern California’s international connections
•         Global California and its international role
•         diversity and U.S. foreign policy
•         think tanks and U.S. foreign policy
•         institution-building
•         promoting democracy internationally
•         political interaction between countries, localities and societies

Lowenthal received his AB, MPA, and PhD degrees from Harvard University. He has been a visiting fellow at Oxford, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, CEBRAP (Brazil), FAAP (Brazil), FLACSO (Chile), Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Princeton’s Center for International Studies, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at San Diego, the Public Policy Institute of California, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Lowenthal received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame and has been decorated by the governments of Brazil and the Dominican Republic. In 2010, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce awarded him the Stanley T. Olafson Plaque for his outstanding contributions to promoting southern California’s international trade.

Lowenthal has served on the boards the Pacific Council, the Fulbright Association, the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, the Trade Advisory Council of the City of Los Angeles, the Latin American Studies Association, and the American Political Science Association. He is a member of the board of the Leo Baeck Institute and of the Research Council of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, and is a contributing editor to New Perspectives Quarterly. Lowenthal has served as director of studies and as a vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a Peru representative for the Ford Foundation. At USC, he directed the Center for International Studies from 1992-1997, and chaired university-wide committees on investment and social responsibility and on enhancing USC’s strengths on Pacific Rim issues.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Watch the ZOOM recording of the event HERE: