DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): The dynamics and legacies of political and criminal violence; governance in violent settings (rebel governance, criminal governance, local governance); state building; mixed methods.

Program Area(s): Comparative Politics

Regional Specialization(s): Latin America

Subfield Specialties: Conflict Studies

Biography

Ana Arjona is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Perspectives on Politics, and the founding director of the Network of Studies on Drugs in Latin America (REDESDAL). She obtained her PhD in political science from Yale University (with distinction) and has been a fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and the Buffett Institute at Northwestern University. She served as director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia (2018-2019), where she was a visiting professor at the School of Economics. Her research investigates the dynamics and legacies of institutional change, governance, violence, and individual behavior in contexts of violence, especially civil war and organized crime. She is the author of the award-winning book Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War (2016), co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil War (2015), and author of several articles and book chapters, which have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), The American Political Science Review, and The Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others.

Her work has been funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the SSRC, the United States Institute of Peace, Yale University, Columbia University, and Northwestern University in the U.S.; the International Development Research Centre in Canada; the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden; and the Department for International Development, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Global Challenges Research Fund in the U.K. She also received the Barry Farrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Northwestern.

Books

• 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.
• Ana Arjona, Lucas Marín-Llanes and María Alejandra Vélez (Eds), 2026. Del Cultivo al Consumo: Debates Sobre Narcotráfico, Violencia y Política de Drogas en Colombia (From Cultivation to Consumption: Debates on Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Drug Policy in Colombia). Ediciones UniAndes (Bogotá, Colombia).

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

• Arjona, Ana, Mario Chacón, and Laura García-Montoya, 2025. "The Impact of Political Assassinations on Turnout: Evidence from Colombia." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 122 (11) e2414767122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2414767122.
• Ibáñez, Ana María, Ana Arjona, Julián Arteaga, Juan C. Cárdenas, and Patricia Justino, 2024. "The Long-Term Economic Legacies of Rebel Rule in Civil War: Micro Evidence from Colombia." Journal of Conflict Resolution 68, No. 9: 1825-1855.
• García-Montoya, Laura, Ana Arjona, and Matthew Lacombe, 2022. "Violence and Voting in the United States: How School Shootings Affect Elections." American Political Science Review 116, No. 3: 807-826.
• 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.

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