Job market candidates 2025-2026 Subfield: Comparative Politics

My research explores organised crime-related violence, governance, and State-building, with a regional focus on Latin America. In my doctoral dissertation, I seek to explain variation in territorial control in Latin American cities, offering a theoretical framework to account for how and why States are able to build and sustain territorial control in areas dominated by criminal groups. I test my theoretical claims across several empirically rich case studies, drawing on original data gathered through hundreds of research interviews. These were undertaken in six cities from across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. 

College: Green Templeton College

Thesis Title: “Coercion, Capital, and The Latin American City: Understanding Territorial Control and Governance in Marginalized Urban Communities”.

Supervisor: Professor Timothy Power

As a comparativist, I am interested in political parties and institutional development in post-conflict settings; collective political violence; electoral behaviour; and human rights. My doctoral dissertation explains divergent party building trajectories in the aftermath of Latin American civil wars. It combines theory development with rich empirics based on structured and unstructured data, including thorough analysis of in-depth interviews, archival material, and surveys.

College: Green Templeton College

Thesis Title: Designed for War, (Un)Successful in Democracy: Party-Building after Civil Conflict in Latin America

Supervisor: Professor Timothy Power

My research looks at the effect of social cleavages and identity on political behaviour. In particular, I’m very interested in the role of place-based identities—attachment to where we live—what motivates this on a very local level, and how it affects how we engage in politics, and who we vote for. To study this, I use a range of quantitative methods, including survey experiments, panel studies and very fine-grained contextual data. I am also more broadly interested in studying political attitudes and affect, such as opinions towards climate change, and the role of our perceptual biases in how we form political opinions.

College: St Peter’s College

Thesis Title: Go As We Are: The Politics of Place Attachment

Supervisor: Professor James Tilley

Area: Comparative Government