- Research Fellow in the War Studies Department, King's College London
Raúl is a Mexican sociologist and political scientist. He is a Teaching Fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
Raul’s research interests lie at the nexus of development, inequalities, and crime and conflict. He is currently focusing on youth recruitment by criminal organisations in Latin America. Raul is also interested in climate change and disaster prevention, politics of inequality, social mobility, education policy, civil-military relations, peacebuilding, and the politics of the war on drugs.
His recent research documents on criminal wars, socioeconomic development, violence, and the political economy of the Mexican drug war have been published in Third World Quarterly, The Journal of Crime and Justice, The Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, Critical Sociology, and Armed Forces & Society.
Raul holds a PhD in Sociology of War from the School of Security Studies in King’s College London, a master’s degree in political science from El Colegio de México and a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration from the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM).
Before working in academia, Raul had an extensive career in government. He started as a Junior Officer on Democratic Culture and Peace in the Morelos Government. He advanced as a Junior Researcher on Mexican politics at the Institute Belisario Dominguez of the Mexican Senate, an external advisor on legislative affairs for the Undersecretary of Budget of the Mexican Finance Secretariat, and Director General of Legislative Liaison of the Secretariat of Economy.
Experience
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2024–presentTeaching Fellow, King's College London
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2023–2024Lecturer, University of Oxford
Education
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2023King's College London, PhD in Sociology of War
Publications
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2025Rushing Infrastructure Projects Under Austerity: The Militarization of the Mexican Public Administration During AMLO’s Government, Armed Forces & Society
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2024Escaping Precariousness: Criminal Occupational Mobility of Homicide Inmates During the Mexican Drug War, Journal of Illicit Economies and Development
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2024Organised Violence, Inequality and Work: Violence Specialists as a Classed Occupation, Critical Sociology
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2023Conceptualising criminal wars in Latin America, Third World Quarterly
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2023Effects of long-term development and schooling expansion on the decline in homicide rates: Mexico from 1950 to 2005, Journal of Crime and Justice
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2018Seven Explanatory Approaches about the Increasing of Violence in Mexico, Política y gobierno
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