Social Policy Expansion Book Cover

My research interests include social policy and redistribution, social movements and interest representation, and environmental and health policy. In my book Social Policy Expansion in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2016), I characterize and explain the recent expansion and cross-country variation in social policy programs (income transfers, pensions, and health-care services) for populations historically excluded from social protection in Latin America. The book received the 2017 Robert A. Dahl Award of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and an honorable mention for the 2018 Bryce Wood Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

In my second book project (advance contract, Cambridge University Press), I explain why coalitions between labor unions and informal-sector and/or rural worker movements have formed in some developing countries but not in others. I explore how and why these coalitions endure and analyze the ways in which they interact with political parties. In another book project I study social policy expansion in Latin America and other regions of the Global South (advance contract, Element Series in the Politics of Development, Cambridge University Press).

In other research projects, I focus on social movements and policy trajectories, the design and implementation of environmental legislation, the politics of subnational healthcare services, and the relationships between political parties and social and labor organizations.