DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): The dynamics and legacies of organized violence, especially civil wars and organized crime, local governance, state building, and the foundations of political order.

Program Area(s): Comparative Politics

Regional Specialization(s): Latin America

Subfield Specialties: Conflict Studies; Law and Politics

Biography

Ana Arjona is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. She was the Director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs at Los Andes University in Bogota, Colombia in 2018-2019, where she is now Associate Researcher. She obtained her PhD in political science from Yale University (with distinction), and has been a Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research investigates the dynamics and legacies of organized violence, especially civil wars and organized crime, local governance, state building, and the foundations of political order. She is the author of the award-winning book Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2016), co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and author of several articles and book chapters.

Select Publications

• Arjona, Ana, 2016. Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics Series).
• Arjona, Ana, Nelson Kasfir and Zachariah Mampilly, (Eds), 2015. Rebel Governance in Civil War. Cambridge University Press.
• Arjona, Ana, 2019. “Subnational Units, the Locus of Choice, and Theory Building: The Case of Civilian Agency in Civil War.” In R. Snyder, A. Giraudy, and E. Moncada (Eds.), Subnational Research in Comparative Politics (Cambridge University Press).
• Arjona, Ana, 2018. “Civilian Cooperation and Non-Cooperation with Non-State Armed Groups: The Centrality of Obedience and Resistance.” Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 28(04-05): 755 - 778, 2017. Reprinted in Duyvesteyn, Isabelle (Ed.), Rebels and Legitimacy: Processes and Practices, Routdledge, 2018.
• Arjona, Ana, 2016. “Institutions, Civilian Resistance and Wartime Social Order: A Process-Driven Natural Experiment in the Colombian Civil War.” Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 58(3): 99–122.
• Arjona, Ana, and Luis de la Calle, 2016. “Conflict, Violence, and Democracy in Latin America,” with Luis de la Calle. Introduction to the first bilingual issue of Politica y Gobierno (CIDE, Mexico), Vol. XXIII (1).
• Arjona, Ana, 2015. “Resistance Against Rebel Governance.” In Ana Arjona, Nelson Kasfir, and Zachariah Mampilly (Eds.), Rebel Governance in Civil War. Cambridge University Press.
• Arjona, Ana, 2014. “Wartime Institutions: A Research Agenda.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58(8): 1360–1389.
• Arjona, Ana and Stathis Kalyvas, 2012. “Recruitment into Armed Groups in Colombia: A Survey of Demobilized Fighters". In Yvan Guichaoua (Ed.), Understanding Collective Political Violence. Macmillan Palgrave.

Awards

• Farrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Northwestern University (2018).
• Conflict Research Society, Book of the Year Award to Rebelocracy (2018).
• Visiting Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame (Jan. – May 2016).
• Public Voices Fellowship with the OpEd project (2014–2015).
• Postdoctoral Fellow, The Earth Institute and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University (Nov. 2010 – May 2012).

Courses taught

• PS 377: Drugs and Politics
• PS 395: Civilians in War
• PS 490: Civil War: Microfoundations and Local Dynamics
• PS 490: Proseminar in Comparative Politics