Raúl Zepeda Gil

Raul is a Mexican interdisciplinary sociologist and political scientist who focuses on the nexus between socioeconomic inequalities and conflicts. He is currently an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His analytical lenses span international political economy, critical policy analysis, history of ideas, analytical Marxism, and stratification sociology.

Raul is currently researching several topics, mainly on youth recruitment by criminal organisations and labour market inequalities in the Latin American drug wars. He also focuses on climate change politics, teachers’ education policy, civil-military relations, austerity, inequalities and criminal violence, and international politics of the war on drugs. Moreover, Raul is beginning to craft a research agenda on the political theory of existential risk and on discourses of human nature in response 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.

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).