Ixchel Aguilar-Moore

Ixchel Aguilar-Moore is a fourth-year Global Studies major with minors in Spanish and Geography. She is working on a departmental honors senior thesis under the International Institute department. Her thesis explores post-coup democratization in Central America, using the 2009 coup in Honduras as a focal point. She is interested in exploring why Central America lags in post-coup democratization compared to other parts of the world. She hypothesizes that the degree of U.S. intervention in the coup and historically in political and economic structures play a role in the post-coup democratization processes’ success level. She also aims to look at social movements, political party formation, and diplomatic relationships between Central America and the United States to further explain the connection between coups and democracy. At UCLA, Ixchel is the Political Educator for UNICA (Unión Centroamericana), a peer learning facilitator for the Undergraduate Writing Center, a member of the Global Development Lab, and a Study Abroad Ambassador. She hopes to study international law, with a focus on humanitarian and refugee law. As a Honduran, she hopes her research will support corruption-free democratic structures in Central America by understanding the events and factors that form the current political structures.