Yanilda González

Yanilda González is an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on policing, state violence, and citizenship in democracy, examining how race, class, and other forms of inequality shape these processes.

González’s recent book Authoritarian Police in Democracy: Contested Security in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2020) studies the persistence of police forces as authoritarian enclaves in otherwise democratic states, demonstrating how ordinary democratic politics in unequal societies can both reproduce authoritarian policing and bring about rare moments of expansive reforms.

Prior to joining the Kennedy School, González was an assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. She previously worked at a number of human rights organizations in the US and Argentina, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, ANDHES, and Equipo Latinoaméricano de Justicia y Género. 

González earned a PhD in politics and social policy from Princeton University.