Ongoing projects examine the organization of insurgent groups, violence and police corruption, varying armed political orders between states and armed groups, electoral violence, sub-national variation in governance and state authority, the origins and power of prison gangs, and the politics of paramilitaries and militias.

Current research questions include:

• When and why do armed groups get involved in electoral politics?
• When do governments and drug cartels engage in sustained armed conflict?
• Why do states sometimes cooperate with non-state armed groups, and sometimes instead target them for destruction?
• When does government support for militias strengthen state authority, and when does it undermine it?
• Do prison gangs grow stronger as incarceration rates rise?
• How do governments identify and evaluate internal threats?