Beatriz Magaloni

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Beatriz Magaloni, MA, PhD

  • Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
  • Professor of Political Science

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949 (voice)

Biography

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

publications

Books
October 2016

"Political Logic of Poverty Relief" Electoral Strategies and Social Policy in Mexico

Author(s)
cover link "Political Logic of Poverty Relief" Electoral Strategies and Social Policy in Mexico
Books
December 2009

Welfare Benefits, Canvassing, and Campaign Handouts

Author(s)
cover link Welfare Benefits, Canvassing, and Campaign Handouts

In The News

Presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum of ''Sigamos Haciendo Historia'' coalition waves at supporters after the first results released by the election authorities show that she leads the polls by wide margin after the presidential election at Zocalo Square on June 03, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Commentary

6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab, in collaboration with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, invited a panel of scholars to discuss the implications of Mexico’s elections and to analyze the political context in which they were held.
cover link 6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy
Beatriz Magaloni presents during a CDDRL research seminar on April 11, 2024.
News

Can Indigenous Political Autonomy Reduce Organized Crime? Insights from Mexico

Beatriz Magaloni, the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, presented her latest research during a CDDRL seminar talk.
cover link Can Indigenous Political Autonomy Reduce Organized Crime? Insights from Mexico
Policing for the People
News

Policing for the People

Beatriz Magaloni can tell you which criminal justice reforms make communities safer in Mexico and beyond.
cover link Policing for the People