About Me

Welcome to my website! I’m a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Previously, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Grinnell College (2019-2020) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (2017-2019). I hold a B.A. from Coe College (2004), a Masters in Ethno-Communal Conflict from University College Dublin (2008), and a Ph.D. in comparative politics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2017). 

My research focuses on political and criminal violence, illicit markets, public security, and non-state governance in Latin America. My current book project, “Inside Gang Governance” (under contract with Cambridge University Press) examines how drug trafficking gangs control territory and develop various kinds of relations with favela communities in Rio de Janeiro. My research has been funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council’s Drugs, Security and Democracy in Latin America and the International Dissertation Research Fellowships as well as the Department of Education through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad. 

Contact Info:
Nicholas Barnes
Arts Faculty Building
The Scores
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AX
njb22 (at) st-andrews (dot) ac (dot) uk

See more photos by Antonello Veneri.