Daniel Chavez is a Uruguayan anthropologist and political scientist focused on Latin American politics and urban social movements. He joined the Trasnational Institute (TNI, Amsterdam) in 2001 as Coordinator of the Energy Project, looking at democratic and participatory alternatives to electricity privatisation in the Global South. Before moving to Europe he worked for more than a decade for the Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives (FUCVAM). He currently coordinates the TNI New Politics Programme, in cooperation with Hilary Wainwright. He has authored and edited a number of books, including The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, with Patrick Barrett and Cesar Rodriguez Garavito (Pluto Books, 2008), and The Left in the City: Participatory Local Governments in Latin America, with Benjamin Goldfrank (LAB, 2003). He holds a Phd in Politics of Development from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS, The Hague).