Research

Dissertation Project:

The Politics of Police Reform and Organized Crime

My dissertation explores why local governments in Mexico implement police reforms that aim to absorb municipal police forces under state-level control—a phenomenon that I refer to as subnational police centralization. The dissertation also examines the effectiveness of these reforms in containing organized criminal violence and police corruption within the context of the ongoing drug war.

This ongoing project is currently funded by the John L. Simpson ABD Research Fellowship in Area Studies, the University of California Alianza MX,  and the Center for the Study of American Democracy Research Grant.

Working Papers:

"Patronage Protection: Violence and Migration in Depression-Era Texas." With Leonardo Arriola & Juvenal Cortes Rivera. Under review.

Abstract: There remains considerable debate concerning the extent to which Mexicans were coerced into leaving the United States through repatriation campaigns that emerged during the Great Depression. While prior research has emphasized factors such as economic crisis or xenophobic sentiment, we argue that local patronage politics conditioned the migration choices of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in distinct ways. We claim that White political bosses had an incentive to distinguish Mexican Americans from Mexican immigrants because only the former could trade votes for political protection. To assess this hypothesis, we examine net migration across Texas counties between 1930 and 1940. We show that Mexican Americans were less likely to leave counties controlled by patronage machines, as proxied by the effective number of candidates. Mexican immigrants, by contrast, were more likely to depart counties with identity-related factors, such as a history of anti-Mexican mob violence and slave-owning, uncorrelated with Mexican American migration. 

"The Logic of Political Entry During Violent Electoral Cycles." With Navin Bapat.

Abstract:  Elections tend to be violent events in many democratic settings, but in Latin America they lead to the systematic targeting of politicians by organized crime groups. It is thus unclear why individuals decide to run as mayoral candidates at the local level during violent elections. To answer this, we develop a formal model that explains why individuals decide to enter politics within the context of drug wars. We find that a candidate's decision to run while facing the risk of assassination is a function of both their political ideology and the probability that they are killed inadvertently in drug violence. Candidates seeking more radical changes are more likely to run even under the threat of violence. However, we also maintain that the range of candidates willing to run increases as indiscriminate drug violence worsens since not running may also impose a political cost. Our model sheds light on some of the mechanisms through which criminal organizations can undermine democracy at the local level in the Global South.

Work in Progress:

"State Repression and the Diversification of Drug Trafficking Organizations."

Abstract: How does state repression affect the illicit strategies and behaviors of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs)? I argue in this paper that DTO strategy diversification, which I measure using a variant of the Herfindahl–Hirschman index, is more likely to occur in subnational territories 1) where the federal government intervenes directly and 2) where local governments tend to be dependent on federal cash transfers to fund their security institutions. Given information asymmetries whereby local governments are more knowledgeable about DTO operations than the federal government, central governments have the incentive to militarily intervene in drug wars themselves, ultimately pressuring DTOs to diversify their activities. But if subnational governments are dependent on cash transfers, they will align their security strategies with the federal government's if they believe such tactic will guarantee that the central state will provide them more resources and support in the long term. These factors combined motivate DTOs to pursue a wide range of activities that entail fewer risks but can potentially make up for a significant portion of lost sales in the illicit drug market. These findings are consistent with existing comparative politics research that inform us that repressive state policies tend to produce unintended outcomes, such as increases in the levels of violence and crimes directed against civilians, including kidnapping and extortion.