Eduardo Moncada

Eduardo Moncada is the Claire Tow Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University. His research examines the political consequences of crime and violence in Latin America, with a focus on how criminal governance shapes local political life. He is the author of Cities, Business, and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America (Stanford University Press), which analyzes how local political economies and criminal territorial control shape distinct responses to urban violence. His second book, Resisting Extortion: Victims, Criminals, and States in Latin America (Cambridge University Press), introduces a novel framework for understanding how victims of criminal extortion mobilize varied forms of resistance. The book received multiple awards from the American Political Science Association, the Latin American Studies Association, and the American Society of Criminology.

He is also co-editor of Inside Countries: Subnational Research in Comparative Politics (Cambridge University Press), a volume that advances the subnational turn in comparative politics by highlighting the conceptual and methodological opportunities of studying politics below the national level. In his current research, Moncada is examining the ways in which criminal organizations govern territories shapes how citizens make claims on the state for public goods and services. Moncada’s work is based on extensive fieldwork in Latin America, and has been supported by the Fulbright Program, the Ford Foundation, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, among others.