Alberto Díaz-Cayeros

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, MA, PhD

  • Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
  • Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
  • Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
  • Director of the Center for Latin American Studies (2016 - 2023)

Encina Hall, C149
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 725-0500 (voice)

Biography

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and co-director of the Democracy Action Lab (DAL), based at FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL). His research interests include federalism, poverty relief, indigenous governance, political economy of health, violence, and citizen security in Mexico and Latin America.

He is the author of Federalism, Fiscal Authority and Centralization in Latin America (Cambridge, reedited 2016), coauthored with Federico Estévez and Beatriz Magaloni, of The Political Logic of Poverty Relief (Cambridge, 2016), and of numerous journal articles and book chapters.

He is currently working on a project on cartography and the developmental legacies of colonial rule and governance in indigenous communities in Mexico.

From 2016 to 2023, he was the Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University, and from 2009 to 2013, Director of the Center for US-Mexican Studies at UCSD, the University of California, San Diego.

publications

Journal Articles
October 2025

Los cuerpos en San Francisco (Bodies in San Francisco)

Author(s)
Los cuerpos en San Francisco (Bodies in San Francisco)
Working Papers
October 2025

Original Peoples Count: The Resurgence of Indigenous Communities, Identities and Nations In Latin America

Author(s)
Original Peoples Count: The Resurgence of Indigenous Communities, Identities and Nations In Latin America
Journal Articles
September 2025

Does the Bukele Model Have a Future?

Author(s)
Does the Bukele Model Have a Future?

In The News

Presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum of ''Sigamos Haciendo Historia'' coalition waves at supporters after the first results released by the election authorities show that she leads the polls by wide margin after the presidential election at Zocalo Square on June 03, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Commentary

6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab, in collaboration with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, invited a panel of scholars to discuss the implications of Mexico’s elections and to analyze the political context in which they were held.
6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy