My research bridges the fields of Comparative Politics and International Relations. I specialize in the political dynamics of civil war, organized crime, and public security. My findings emphasize how crime and violence shape democratic politics for citizens, politicians, and states, particularly in new and transitioning democracies of the Global South.
I pair qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches and am deeply engaged in conversations about the challenges of conducting research in violent spaces and with sensitive populations. My article (with Jerome F. Marston), outlines strategies for mitigating against selection bias in these contexts. Though my research is broadly relevant across geographical and cultural contexts, I also have a regional expertise in Latin America. I have extensive experience carrying out field research and informing policy discussions in the Western Hemisphere.
In my current book project, ""It could have been me": Empathy, civic engagement, and violence in Mexico," I investigate how variation in experiences with violence shapes citizen civic engagement. Drawing on over 16 months of ethnographic field research, paired with large-n and experimental data, my research reveals a heretofore unrecognized empirical relationship: indirect exposure (like through the media) to a case of violence that provokes empathy (that is, the sense that a victim "could have been me") provokes citizens to pursue future civic engagement. This, despite not being victimized themselves nor knowing the victim. This finding provides an important revision to existing scholarship, which emphasizes the role of direct victimization in shaping political behavior. In doing so, I demonstrate the shortcomings of existing conceptualizations of "victim" and theorize a broader "spectrum of victimization" to capture the full variation of victimization experiences that shape political outcomes. I also highlight the crucial role of empathy in politics - an important but understudied phenomena - and open new avenues for research into the affective elements of political life.
I pair qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches and am deeply engaged in conversations about the challenges of conducting research in violent spaces and with sensitive populations. My article (with Jerome F. Marston), outlines strategies for mitigating against selection bias in these contexts. Though my research is broadly relevant across geographical and cultural contexts, I also have a regional expertise in Latin America. I have extensive experience carrying out field research and informing policy discussions in the Western Hemisphere.
In my current book project, ""It could have been me": Empathy, civic engagement, and violence in Mexico," I investigate how variation in experiences with violence shapes citizen civic engagement. Drawing on over 16 months of ethnographic field research, paired with large-n and experimental data, my research reveals a heretofore unrecognized empirical relationship: indirect exposure (like through the media) to a case of violence that provokes empathy (that is, the sense that a victim "could have been me") provokes citizens to pursue future civic engagement. This, despite not being victimized themselves nor knowing the victim. This finding provides an important revision to existing scholarship, which emphasizes the role of direct victimization in shaping political behavior. In doing so, I demonstrate the shortcomings of existing conceptualizations of "victim" and theorize a broader "spectrum of victimization" to capture the full variation of victimization experiences that shape political outcomes. I also highlight the crucial role of empathy in politics - an important but understudied phenomena - and open new avenues for research into the affective elements of political life.
PUBLICATIONS & PAPERS
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METHODS FOR RESEARCHING VIOLENCE
Confronting Selection Bias: The Normative and Empirical Risks of Data Collection in Violent Contexts Geopolitics (2019) with Jerome Marston Field researchers of violence and human rights work in high-risk but low-information environments that create distinct logistical challenges. There, the probability of methodological misstep and the accompanying empirical and normative consequences are heightened. We interrogate one methodological hazard common to research in violent contexts - selection bias - and lay out clear strategies for minimizing its consequences. POLITICS OF PUBLIC SECURITY
Who is Safe? Varieties of Security in the American City (Working paper - available upon request) with Richard O. Snyder The public good of local safety can be provided by a host of public, private and community agents combining in a multiplicity of ways. Using evidence gathered via subnational comparative analysis of neighborhoods within one single American city - Providence, Rhode Island - we observe striking variation in the provision of local security. To describe and explain these local varieties of security, we propose a multilateral, multilevel and subnational framework that offers a far stronger understanding not only of who is safe, but also how and why. |
VIOLENCE AND CITIZEN POLITICS
The Political Consequences of Violence: Empathy and civic action during conflict (Working paper - available upon request) Existing research suggests that victimization leads to increased political participation. Yet, this focus on victimization omits the most frequent citizen experience - indirect exposure to violence (i.e., via the media). Using large-n survey data from Mexico, I demonstrate that indirect exposure to violence also provokes civic engagement among non-victim citizens. I then draw on original qualitative data to explore potential explanations for this relationship. I argue that empathy for victims of violence motivates civic engagement among non-victims. Violent Civic Responsibility: Vigilantism in Mexico (Working paper - available upon request) What explains participation in vigilante movements? Unlike existing theories that emphasize self-help survival behaviors, I leverage large-n survey data from Mexico to show that individual factors associated with support for vigilantism mirror those associated with nonviolent civic engagement. This study thus revises how we understand vigilante movements by emphasizing the political underpinnings of vigilantism and re-framing vigilantism as a political choice, rather than a survival strategy. VIOLENCE AND CONFLICT PROCESSES
Overkill: Understanding spectacle violence during conflict (Working Paper - available upon request) with Jerome Marston This article advances a new conceptual category of violence, “overkill,” which describes acts of violence whose aim seems to surpass the goal of killing alone. We use quantitative data from Colombia and Mexico to show that, as a subcategory of conflict violence, overkill has distinct drivers and consequences for conflict trajectories. |
