Rachel Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Political Science, History & Political Science

Schwartz Head Shot

Phone
614-823-1564

Email
schwartz3@otterbein.edu

Office
Towers 214

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2019
  • B.A., Haverford College, 2011

    • Research, Creative, & Professional Work

  • Dr. Schwartz is currently completing a book manuscript, provisionally titled Undermining the State from Within: The Institutional Legacies of Civil War in Central America, which examines how armed conflicts in the 1980s generated perverse, often predatory, rules and procedures within state institutions, which have distorted long-term development in the Central America.

    • Publications

  • Forthcoming. “Guatemala: The Military in Politics,” with Anita Isaacs. Oxford Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics. Oxford University Press.
  • 2020. “Conjuring the Criminal State: Rethinking the ‘State-Idea’ in Post-Conflict Reconstruction and International Statebuilding.” Journal of Global Security Studies. Online First.
  • 2020. “Civil War, Institutional Change, and the Criminalization of the State: Evidence from Guatemala.” Studies in Comparative International Development 55(3): 381-401.
  • 2018. “What Drives Violence against Civilians in Civil War? Evidence from Guatemala’s Conflict Archives,” with Scott Straus. Journal of Peace Research 55(2): 222-235.
  • 2018. “Rethinking Comparison,” with Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith. Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 16(1): 1-7.
  • 2018. “From Reconciliation to Rule of Law: The Shifting Landscape of International Transitional Justice Assistance in Guatemala,” with Anita Isaacs, in Transitional Justice, International Assistance, and Civil Society: Missed Connections, eds. Paige Arthur and Christalla Yakinthou (New York: Cambridge University Press), 27-51

    • Affiliations & Awards

  • Gabriel A. Almond Dissertation Award, American Political Science Association, 2020
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR), Tulane University, 2019-2020
  • Fulbright Award (Guatemala), 2016-2017
  • Jennings Randolph Peace Scholarship, United States Institute of Peace, 2016-2017
  • American Political Science Association
  • Latin American Studies Association
  • International Studies Association
  • Guatemala Scholars Network