Nicholas Barnes is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests, broadly, include organized crime, political violence, social movements, and urban development in Latin America. His current book project, based on three years of field research in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, develops a theory of how and why drug-trafficking gangs have implemented varying governance regimes in these communities. His 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.