Joel Herrera is a political and historical sociologist studying violence and illicit markets with a focus in Mexico and Latin America. His research agenda covers how statebuilding projects shape drug markets, how criminal groups interact with local communities, and how civil society responds to violence and organized crime.
While at Notre Dame he will work on the project “The Haphazard State: Political Power, Development, and the Making of Mexico's Drug Wars,” which examines the persistence of violence linked to drug trafficking in Mexico. His research argues that drug trafficking and criminal rule result not from state absence but from flawed state-building processes, as demonstrated through a comparative analysis of drug markets and governance in two states from the 1930s to the present, using archival, interview, and statistical data.
Herrera’s work has been published in several journals including World Development, Latin American Politics and Society, and Global Crime.
Most recently, he was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. Hererra completed his PhD in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Academic Year 2025-2026 : The Haphazard State: Political Power, Development, and the Making of Mexico's Drug Wars