Defense, Public Security and Democracy

Recipients of Section Awards:

Alfred Stepan Lifetime Achievement Award in Defense, Public Security, and Democracy:

2025: Harold Trinkunas 

2024: María Celina Soares D’Araujo

2023: Thomas Bruneau

2022: Bertha Garcia Gallegos

2021: David Mares

2020: José Manuel Ugarte

2019: David Pion-Berlin

2018: Alfred C. Stepan (posthumously)

2016: Rut Diamint

2015: J. Samuel Fitch

Best Book

2025: Viviana García Pinzón TRAJECTORIES OF GOVERNANCE. Tracing the Entanglements of Order and Violence in Peripheral Cities of Latin America, Reino Unido, Bristol University Press, 2024

Best Article or Edited Volume Chapter by Section Member

2025: Juan Albarracín y Lucía Tiscornia,  Mall Cop or Robocop? The Political Determinants of Police Militarization in Brazil, Political Research Quarterly 2024, Vol. 77(4). 

2024:Carolina Sampó {with Valeska Troncoso}(Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Conicet), Argentina; and Universidad de Santiago de Chile)“Cocaine trafficking from non-traditional ports: examining the cases of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay”, Trends on Organized Crime 26, 235-257. 2023

2023: Eduardo Moncada (Barnard College, Columbia University), “Resisting Extortion: Victims,
Criminals, and States in Latin America”. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021

2022:  Rafael Martinez and Nicole Jenne for ""Domestic military missions in Latin America: Civil-Military Relations and the perpetuation of democratic deficits," published in the European Journal of International Security"

2021: Annette Idler for The Logic of Illicit Flows in Armed Conflict: Explaining Variation in Violent Non-state Group Interactions in Colombia, World Politics, 72 (3), 2020.

2020: Luis Schenoni for "Was the Malvinas/Falklands a Diversionary War? A Prospect-Theory Reinterpretation of Argentina's Decline" (with Sean Braniff & Jorge Battaglino), Published in 2019.

2018: Enrique Desmond Arias, for "Crime and Plural Orders in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil," Current Sociology, 65, no. 3 (May 2017): 448–465 (with Nicholas Barnes).

2017: Not Awarded

2016: Carlos Solar, for "Governance of Defense and Policy Making in Chile," Latin American Policy 6, no. 2 (December 2015): 205–225.

2015: Rafael Martínez, for "Subtypes of Coups d'état: Recent Transformations of a 17th Century Concept," Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals 108 (2014): 191–212.

2014: Maiah Jaskoski, for "Private Financing of the Military: A Local Political Economy Approach," Studies in Comparative International Development 48, no. 2 (June 2013): 172–195.

Best Paper Presented at LASA by Junior Scholar Section Member

2025: Not Awarded

2023: Not Awarded

2022: Not Awarded

2021: Not Awarded

2020: Lindsay Mayka for "The Power of Human Rights Frames in Urban Security: Lessons from Bogotá" at LASA 2019

2019: Eduardo Moncada, for "The Politics of Criminal Victimization: Pursuing and Resisting Power," at LASA 2018.

2018: Not Awarded

2017: Not Awarded

2016: Anjuli Ferreira-Fahlberg, for “When the Police Come to Town: Safety and Order in a Rio de Janeiro Militarized Community,” at LASA 2015.

2015: Not Awarded

2014: Natalia Vargas Palacios, for “The Democratic Insertion of Armed Forces.  The Process of Institutional Reforms in the Defense System; a compared proposal for measuring the quality of the democracy in the defense's partial regime,” at LASA 2013.

Travel Award for Graduate Student Section Member

2025: Not Awarded

2023: Sofía Duarte

2022: Pablo Navarro Urquiza

2021: Not Awarded

2020: Pablo Navarro Urquiza and Daniella Lilliu Atance

2019: Laura Iesue

2018: Jennifer Peirce

2013: Magdalena Defort

There are no upcoming events posted at this time.