Dr Mercedes Hinton

Dr. Hinton is Nuffield Research Fellow at the Law Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before joining the department in October 2005, Dr. Hinton taught Democracy and Development in the Government Department of the LSE. Prior to that she completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Law Department, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Dr. Hinton holds a BA in Government (cum laude) from Harvard University and an M. Phil (with Distinction) in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). She earned her PhD at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge, where she has served as a guest lecturer at the Centre for Latin American Studies and where she is also presently a Research Fellow in the Arts and Social Sciences of Clare Hall. She is fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Dr. Hinton is presently carrying out a three-year research project on globalization, migration, and democratic policing in London, New York, and Paris funded by a Nuffield Foundation New Career Development Fellowship (£120,000). The project will be carried out in partnership with LSE Professor of Social Policy Tim Newburn. (http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/go/grants/ncdf/news_1667.html).

In addition to her academic pursuits, Dr. Hinton serves as Secretary of a registered UK charity targeting disadvantaged children in East London (http://www.ukicecats.org). While studying as an undergraduate at Harvard, she also served as President of a not-for-profit institution that promotes increased political participation in Latin America.

Research interests and areas of supervision

Selected recent publications:

The State on the Streets: Police and Politics in Argentina and Brazil
Mercedes S. Hinton

The State on the Streets

January 2006

"An up-to-date, vivid, and illuminating comparative analysis of the obstacles to police reform in South America. Dr. Hinton has focused on one of the most critical (and little studied) obstacles to full democratization in the region."-Laurence Whitehead, Nuffield College, University of Oxford

How Latin American governments will respond to popular outcry against unprecedented levels of both corruption and crime ranks among the principal political questions of this decade. The State on the Streets focuses on the tense interplay of police, democracy, state, and civil society in the region, using the cases of Argentina and Brazil as a lens.

Mercedes Hinton draws on her rare access to a wide spectrum of actors in the two countries, including top police officials and street patrolmen, military officers and legislators, clergy and prostitutes, business owners and shantytown residents, to present a vivid account of politics on the ground. Her in-depth comparative analysis reveals surprising parallels in the reform patterns adopted in Argentina and Brazil in the past decade, supporting conclusions that carry disturbing implications for the prospects for democratic consolidation in Latin America as a whole.

CONTENTS:

Introduction: Policing Latin America.
ARGENTINA.
The Rise of Insecurity.
Policing in the Seat of Power.
Reform the Argentine Way.
Overriding Threats and Priorities.
The Argentine Political Game.
BRAZIL.
The Spillover of Crime.
Policing in the Marvelous City.
Reform the Brazilian Way.
Threats and Priorities.
The Brazilian Political Game.
CONCLUSIONS.
Democratic Policing: A Distant Reality?