Dr Barry Cannon is now a lecturer at NUI Maynooth: http://sociology.nuim.ie/people/dr-barry-cannon
Dr Barry Cannon, formerly Irish Research Council ‘Cara’ Fellow ,specializes in democratization and development, particularly in conflict areas in the Latin America region. He lived for over four years in Peru during the 1990s, working in education and development. As part of his PhD fieldwork, he spent eight months in Venezuela and Peru, witnessing the failed April 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. After completing his PhD at DCU in 2005, he worked for Irish development cooperation NGO, Comhlamh, on an Irish Aid funded project on international volunteering. As part of this project he led work on drafting a Code of Practice for volunteer sending organizations and a Volunteer Charter, both adopted by Irish Aid. He also participated in writing a guide for international volunteers, Working for a Better World (New Island: 2007) and the Volunteering Options webpage. On returning to DCU School of Law and Government he led a four year Irish Aid-funded project working with civil society organizations and universities in Central America (Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras). This project provided diplomas on NGO and local government management as well as selecting and funding local research projects. During this period he also carried out research with Dr. Mo Hume of the University of Glasgow on democratization in the three project countries, witnessing yet another coup, this time successful, in Honduras in June, 2009. Currently, Dr Cannon is working on a three year project (2010-2013), funded by the Irish Research Council, on the right in Latin America, focusing on Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela. He has published two books, Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Populism and Democracy in a Globalised Age (Manchester University Press, 2009) and Civil Society and the State in Left-led Latin America: Challenges and Limitations to Democratization (Zed: 2012), co-edited with Prof. Peadar Kirby. He has published journal articles in Third World Quarterly and Bulletin of Latin American Research on contemporary Venezuela and in Democratization and Development in Practice on Central America.