Juan Campos

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and a Research Associate at the Center on the Politics of Development at the University of California, Berkeley.

I study the politics of policing and police reform in comparative perspective with a primary focus on Latin America. My dissertation explores why local governments in Mexico implement police reforms that aim to absorb municipal police forces under state-level control—a phenomenon that I refer to as subnational police centralization. The dissertation also examines the effectiveness of these reforms in containing organized criminal violence and police corruption within the context of the ongoing drug war. 

My research overall employs a multi-method approach that combines quantitative and qualitative techniques, including experimental and quasi-experimental statistical designs, interviewing, and process tracing.

I hold M.A. degrees in political science from UC Berkeley and California State University, Long Beach. I hold a B.A. in Government & International Politics from George Mason University.