research

Research lines

I. Causes of civilian displacement during war and wartime dynamics

What explains wartime displacement? In my first book and related publications, I conceptualize displacement as an interaction between armed groups and civilians and argue that different forms stem from how armed groups target civilians: selective targeting is associated with individual escape, indiscriminate targeting with mass evasion, and collective targeting (based on shared traits) with political cleansing.  This disaggregation allows us to explain different forms of displacement that contribute to the overall scale of this massive form of wartime violence.  During the Colombian civil war, democratic reforms led armed groups to target civilians who supported political rivals collectively, which led to an increase in displacement and made political cleansing a feature of the war, even in the absence of an ethnic cleavage. 

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II. Responses to displacement and wartime violence

Displacement is a massive feature of wartime violence. What are the political implications of displacement? How do states and civilians respond?  

In Government Responses to Internal and International Displacement (GRIID), a new project with Stephanie Schwartz (LSE) and Adam Lichtenheld (IPL, Stanford), we conceptualize government responses as de jure and de facto, and liberal or restrictive, and argue that governments frequently engage in restrictive or respressive responses to the displaced, even while they adopt liberal policies on paper. We are working on a book manuscript.

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Civilians also respond to the displacement they face and state institutions in a variety of ways. I am also working on a book manuscript detailing how one family responded over more than two decades and under a variety of transitional justice regimes in Colombia.

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III. Political development and the state

My third line of work focuses on how institutions and civilian engagement with them -- often in the context or aftermath of war --  influences political  development and the state. With Juan Masullo (Leiden/Milano), I am working on a book on how the transnational prohibition of the drug trade constrains possibilities for non-violent political order and democracy in Latin America.

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