Jorge Mangonnet

Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics in Nuffield College, University of Oxford. I received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2020.

I study comparative politics and political economy, focusing on how states and societies create property rights institutions and how these institutions shape development, conflict, and behavior. I am also interested in the determinants of collective action among marginalized and excluded populations, particularly in rural and peripheral areas beyond the effective reach of the state. My research primarily focuses on Latin America.

In September 2026, I will be a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University's Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS).

Law of the Landless: The Origins of Property Rights in Post-Emancipation Americas. Project summary.
* Winner of the 2021 Mancur Olson Award for the Best Dissertation in Political Economy, American Politial Science Association.

Shocks, Democracy, and Rural Unrest (with M. Victoria Murillo). Cambridge University Press, Elements in Politics of Development. Forthcoming. Abstract and table of contents.

Family Ties, Social Control, and Authoritarian Distribution to Elites (with Antonella Bandiera and Horacio Larreguy). American Political Science Review 120(1): 226-244.  

Peasant Resistance in Times of Economic Affluence: Lessons from Paraguay (with Rocío Liliana Duarte Recalde, Germán Feierherd, and M. Victoria Murillo). 2025. Comparative Political Studies 58(3): 494-525.  

Playing Politics with Environmental Protection: The Political Economy of Designating Protected Areas (with Jacob Kopas and Johannes Urpelainen). 2022. Journal of Politics 84(3): 1453-1468.
* Winner of the 2023 Evan Ringquist Award for the Best Article in Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics, American Politial Science Association.

Protests of Abundance: Distributive Conflict over Agricultural Rents during the Commodities Boom in Argentina, 2003–2013 (with M. Victoria Murillo). 2020. Comparative Political Studies 53(8): 1223-1258.  

Local Economic Voting and the Agricultural Boom in Argentina, 2007-2015 (with M. Victoria Murillo and Julia M. Rubio). 2018. Latin American Politics and Society 60(8): 27-53.  

Argentina: Voters' Influence and Electoral Alternation (with M. Victoria Murillo and Julia M. Rubio). 2018. Revista de Ciencia Política 36(1): 3-26.  

Competitiveness, Partisanship, and Subnational Protest in Argentina (with Moises Arce). 2013. Comparative Political Studies 46(8): 895-919.  

Public Goods Provision and Elite Centrality: Evidence from Paraguay's Democratic Transition (with Antonella Bandiera, Horacio Larreguy, and José Luis Pérez Castellanos). In Roots of Underdevelopment: A New Economic and Political History of Latin America and the Caribbean (Vol II.) (F. Valencia Caicedo, ed.). Forthcoming.

Emancipation, Labor Control, and Property Rights Formation.
* Winner of the 2019 Lanahan Award for the Best Graduate Student Paper, Northeastern Politial Science Association.

Why Landowners Support Property Rights.

How Formal Land Access Shapes Engagement with the State: Evidence from a Land Lottery in Argentina (with Antonella Bandiera, Lucas Borba, and Horacio Larreguy).

Did Slavery Make Stronger States? Mixed Evidence from Brazil (with Alexander Dean).

How the Pampas Was Won: Ethnic Threats and Frontier Expansion in Argentina (with Christopher L. Carter, Paola Galano Toro, and Federico Lombisano).

The Insurgent Roots of Indigenous Rights Litigation (with Sofia Berrospi and Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos).

Triggering Events, Trade, and Slave Resistance in the American South (with Colette Marcellin).

Slaveownership and Political Dynasties: Evidence from the Tennessee General Assembly.

From Slaveholders to Landholders: Race, Labor, and Land Tenure in the Postbellum South.

Far-Right Militias, Conservative Parties, and the Death of Democracy (with Federico Lombisano).

Weapons of the Rich: Leftist Threats and Cadastral Fraud in Brazil (with Guilherme Fasolin).

Vanderbilt University (instructor)
• Historical Political Economy (graduate)
• Political Protest (graduate)
• The Politics of Global Inequality (undergraduate)
• Contentious Politics (undergraduate)

University of Oxford (co-instructor & tutor)
• Comparative Government (graduate)
• Latin American Politics (undergraduate)