Books
Slow Harms and Citizen Action: Environmental Degradation in Latin American Cities (Oxford University Press, 2024) chronicles the struggle against toxic exposure in urban Latin America. Comparing advocacy movements for river pollution remediation in the capital regions of Argentina, Colombia, and Peru, the book explains how citizen-led efforts helped create environmental governance through networks that included impacted communities (bonding mobilization) and resourced allies (bridging mobilization). Through bonding and bridging mobilization, citizen advocacy for slow harms activated the state’s regulatory capacity. Moreover, the most successful environmental movements occurred in settings where established human rights movements had previously helped dismantle state-sponsored militarized violence. By unpacking human rights movements as thoroughfares for environmental activism, Slow Harms and Citizen Action sheds new light on the struggles for environmental justice in Latin America.
Most of the world’s population lives in cities in developing countries, where access to basic public services, such as water, electricity, and health clinics is either inadequate or sorely missing. Water and Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Mexico (University of Michigan Press, 2017) shows how politicians benefit politically from manipulating public service provision for electoral gain. In many young democracies, politicians exchange water service for votes or political support, rewarding allies or punishing political enemies. Surprisingly, the political problem of water provision has become more pronounced, as water service represents a valuable political currency in resource-scarce environments. Water and Politics finds that middle-class and industrial elites play an important role in generating pressure for public service reforms.
Journal Articles
2024. “Citizen-Led Environmental Governance: Regulating Urban Wetlands in South America.” Studies in International Comparative Development. Special Issue Edited by Moises Arce and Maiah Jaskoski. (Honorable Mention, Best Paper Award, Urban and Regional Politics Section, APSA 2023). (Open Access).
2022. “Transparency for Text-Based Sources: From Principles to Practice.” Perspectives on Politics. Online First: 1-18. (with Nikhar Gaikwad).
2021. “The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications” Perspectives on Politics. March: 19 (1). 178-208. (lead authors: Alan Jacobs, Tim Buthe; coauthored with all QTD working group members).
2021. “Summary Report: Qualitative Transparency Deliberations Working Group Report on Text-Based Sources.” Perspective on Politics (with Nikhar Gaikwad and Robert Mickey).
2020. “How do Legal Strategies Advance Social Accountability? Evaluating Mechanisms in Colombia.” Journal of Development Studies, 56 (8). 1437-1454 (with Lindsay Mayka).
2019. “Reconciling Global Aspirations with Local Realities: Challenges Facing the Sustainable Development Goals for Water and Sanitation.” World Development. Special Issue on the UN Millennium Sustainable Development Goals, co-edited by Lorenza Fontana and Johan Oldekop. June. 106-117.
2019. “The Case for Public Policy Expertise in Political Science.” PS: Political Science & Politics. 52 (3). (July): 476-480 (with Alison Post).
2017. “From Participatory Promises to Partisan Capture: Local Democratic Transitions and Citizen Water Boards in Mexico.” Comparative Politics. 49 (4). (July): 479-499.
- Winner of Best Paper Award, Urban and Local Politics Section, American Political Science Association, 2014.
2014. “Can Developing Countries both Decentralize and Depoliticize Urban Water Services? Evaluating the Legacy of the 1990s Reform Wave.” World Development. Volume 64 (December): 621-641 (with Alison Post).
2014. “Does Commercialization Undermine the Benefits of Decentralization for Local Services Provision? Evidence from Mexico’s Urban Water and Sanitation Sector.” World Development. Volume 56. (April): 16-31.
- Selected for inclusion in the National Science Foundation funded Qualitative Data Repository pilot project.
2012. “When Decentralization Matters: Subnational, Municipal, and New Inter-tier Relations.” Latin American Politics and Society. 54 (2). 153-163.
Other Publications
2023. Hispanic American Historical Review. Review of Water for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia by Sarah Hines (University of California Press, 2022).
2021. Urban Affairs Forum. Review of Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums by Adam Auerbach (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
2020. “The Case for Studying Urban Environmental Politics in the Developing World,” in Eugene Finkel, Adria Lawrence, and Andrew Mertha, ed, Cities and Urban Politics. Comparative Politics Newsletter. American Political Science Association. XXX:1. Spring. 43-50.
2018. “Beyond Climate Change: The Latin American Sewage Crisis and Environmental Injustice.” ReVista: The Harvard Review of Latin America. Spring/Summer.
2018. “While Mexico plays politics with its water, some cities flood while others go dry.” The Conversation. March 6.
2017. “Toxic Exposure and Grassroots Activism in Latin American Cities,” Just Environments Series, Items: Insights from the Social Sciences. Social Science Research Council, August 8.
2017. “Understanding the User Experience: Lessons from an Active Citation Piloteer.” Qualitative Data Repository, Center for Qualitative and Multi-Method Inquiry, October 9.
2017. “It’s not just lead that’s poisoning the water. It’s also politics.” Washington Post, Monkey Cage. February 28.
2014. Review of “Practical Authority: Agency and Institutional Change in Brazilian Water Politics” by Rebecca Neaera Abers and Margaret E. Keck. Latin American Politics and Society. Summer. 56 (2).
2008. “New Actors, Old Problems: The Rise of Special Interests in Mexico,” Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley.
2007. “The Persistence of Peronism,” Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies. Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley.
2007. “Torture in a Time of Terrorism,” Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies. Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley.
2005. “Fujimori’s Quiet Coup d’Etat and the Restoration of Peru’s Constitutional Court,” Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley.
