Laura Blume: Tracking lethal violence against public figures in Central America
Title
Tracking lethal violence against public figures in Central America
Mentor
Department
Biosketch
Laura Blume, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of political science and a faculty affiliate of the Gender, Race, and Identity (GRI) program at the Â鶹´«Ã½AV. Her research is on the comparative politics of political and criminal violence, with a regional focus in Central America. More specifically, her work examines organized crime, violence against public figures, and the socio-political consequences of the war on drugs.
Project overview
The Violence Against Public Figures (VAPF) project is constructing a dataset of incidents of lethal violence against a range of public figures in Central America. By public figures we mean politicians (e.g., mayors), community leaders and activists (e.g., environmental defenders, LGBTQ+ activists, Indigenous leaders), judicial officials (e.g., judges and lawyers), and media (e.g., journalists, radio show hosts). We're tracking these murders in all seven Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama). Increasing understanding of this form of violence towards public figures is vital because these murders can have broad and very serious ripple effects on society and governance. For example, killing judges undermines the rule of law and killing candidates drastically impacts elections and democratic representation. For this project, students will primarily be engaged in data collection and verification. Spanish language proficiency is essential to this project. Students will be reading newspaper articles and other sources in Spanish.
Pack Research Experience Program information and application