José Luis Velasco
Visiting Professor
José Luis Velasco is a visiting scholar from the Instituto for Social Research of Mexico’s National University (UNAM), where he is a full-time researcher. He is currently working on illegal drug violence in Mexico and Latin America. His recent teaching has focused on several dimensions of power, particularly its relationship with official and non-official violence.
He is the author of two books: Insurgency, Authoritarianism, and Drug Trafficking in Mexico’s Democratization (New York: Routledge 2005) and El debate actual sobre el federalismo mexicano (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1999). In 2017, he coauthored another book (Complex Associative Systems: Cooperation amid Diversity, Mexico City: UNAM). He has also published several chapters in edited books and articles in scholarly journals.
He was awarded the Mexican Academy of Sciences’ Prize for Social Sciences Research and the National University Prize for Young Scholars in the Social Sciences, both in 2007.