Paul Staniland

Professor, University of Chicago

Paul Staniland is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he also serves as a CPOST Associate Director and co-leads CPOST's Program on Political Violence with Ben Lessing. He also co-directs the Program on International Security Policy. His research interests are in political violence, international security, and state formation, primarily in South and Southeast Asia. His book, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, was published by Cornell University Press in 2014. He is currently writing a book on armed politics and the state in post-colonial South Asia. Other work examines foreign security policy in India, empire and its legacies, electoral violence, and the links between war and state building.

His research has been published in Asian Survey, Civil Wars, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Journal of Conflict Resolution, India Review, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, Security Studies, and the Washington Quarterly, among others. He has done fieldwork in India, Sri Lanka, Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, and Northern Ireland.

Benjamin Lessing

Assistant Professor, University of Chicago

Benjamin Lessing is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he serves as a CPOST Associate Director and co-leads the Center on Political Violence with Paul Staniland. He studies “criminal conflict”—organized armed violence involving non-state actors who, unlike revolutionary insurgents, are not trying to topple the state. He was recently awarded a prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

His first book, Making Peace In Drug Wars: Cartels and Crackdowns in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2017), examines armed conflict between drug trafficking organizations and the state in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. His current book project, tentatively titled Criminal Leviathans: How Gangs Govern, Organize Crime, and Challenge the State from Behind Bars, explores the counterproductive effects of mass-incarceration policies, fostering the growth of powerful armed criminal groups at the core of the state's coercive apparatus. A co-authored article from this project, "Legitimacy in Criminal Governance: Managing a Drug Empire From Behind Bars" was recently published in the American Political Science Review.

Dr. Lessing received an MA in economics and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He also holds a BA in economics and philosophy from Kenyon College. Prior to his graduate work, Lessing conducted field research on the small arms trade in Latin America and the Caribbean for numerous international organizations. In addition, he was a Fulbright student grantee in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.