Research interests
Criminal violence, youth, armed conflicts, political economy of war, masculinities and violence, civil-military relations, climate change politics, education policy, social mobility, crime and skin tone discrimination, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, existential risks
Raul Zepeda Gil
Raúl is a Mexican interdisciplinary sociologist and political scientist focused on the nexus between socioeconomic inequalities and conflicts, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. His analytical lenses span from political economy, critical policy analysis, history of ideas, analytical Marxism, and stratification sociology.
Raúl is currently researching several topics, mainly on youth recruitment by criminal organisations and labour market inequalities in the Latin American drug wars. He also studies on climate change politics, teachers’ education policy, civil-military relations and austerity, inequalities and criminal violence, and international politics of the war on drugs. Moreover, Raul is commencing to craft a research agenda on the political theory of existential risk and human nature discourses due to the climate change crisis.
In his previous work, he has discussed criminal wars in Latin America, schooling and homicide, the political economy of drug wars, youth, economic policy, human rights, higher education funding, civil-military relations in United Nations peacekeeping operations, disaster management and climate change, peace-making with the Colombian drug cartels, and Mexican politics.
His pieces have been published in journals like Third World Quarterly, Crime and Justice, Illicit Economies and Development, Política y Gobierno, Foro Internacional, and Estudios Sociológicos. His book chapters have been published in the series of Routledge Studies in Latin American Politics, Edinburgh University Press, El Colegio de México and Fondo de Cultura Económica. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation and The UK in a Changing Europe have published some of his reports. He has presented papers at the International Political Science Association and the Latin American Studies Association.
Raul has also consulted for the Cooperation Program between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on drug policy (COPOLAD), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the Mexican National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH).
Before working in academia, Raul had an extensive career in government. After graduating from the University, he became a Junior Officer on Democratic Culture and Peace in the Morelos Government. After obtaining his master’s degree, he was hired as a junior researcher on Mexican politics at the Mexican Senate think tank. Later, he became an external advisor on legislative affairs for the Undersecretary of Budget of the Mexican Finance Secretariat. He was appointed Director General of Legislative Liaison of the Secretariat of Economy before his doctoral studies.
Raul holds a PhD in Sociology of War from the School of Security Studies in King’s College London (KCL), 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).
Please note Dr Zepeda Gil is not available to supervise doctoral students.
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Journal articles and special issues( ) Escaping Precariousness: Criminal Occupational Mobility of Homicide Inmates During the Mexican Drug War . Journal of Illicit Economies and Development 6 (1) 1-15( ) Conceptualising criminal wars in Latin America . Third World Quarterly 44 (4) 776-794( ) Effects of long-term development and schooling expansion on the decline in homicide rates: Mexico from 1950 to 2005 . Journal of Crime and Justice 46 (1)( ) Seven Explanatory Approaches about the Increasing of Violence in Mexico . Política y gobierno 25 (1) 185-211
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Chapters( ) Working for 'Minor Utopias': Youth Employment in Sierra Leone and Liberia . Hope in the Anthropocene , Edinburgh University Press( ) Micro-dynamics and Political Economy of the Criminal War in Tierra Caliente, Mexico . In C Solar & R Pérez Crime, Violence, and Justice in Latin America (1st ed.) , Routledge( ) Global Britain: Views from abroad: Mexico . The UK in a Changing Europe
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Working papers( ) Neither NEET nor Unemployed: Mexican Youth Homicide Inmates in Organised Crime . Working Papers CEEY, (22), Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias