Instructor

David A. Shirk is an associate professor of political science at the University of San Diego, and he conducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexican relations, and the U.S.-Mexican border. Dr. Shirk received his undergraduate degree in International Studies from Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He was fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies from 1998-99 and 2001-2003. From 2003 to 2013, in addition to his faculty position, he served as the director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. In 2009-10, Dr. Shirk was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.  He is the principal investigator for the Justice in Mexico project (www.justiceinmexico.org), a bi-national research initiative on criminal justice and the rule of law in Mexico.

Dr. Shirk is the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books and numerous book chapters, articles, and reports. His recent publications include: Armed with Impunity: Curbing Military Human Rights Abuses in Mexico, co-authored with Catherine Daly and Kimberly Heinle (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); La Reforma Judicial en México, ed. with Octavio Rodriguez (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011, co-authored with Octavio Rodríguez and Viridiana Ríos. (San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, 2012); “States, Borders, and Violence: Lessons from the U.S.-Mexican Experience,” in Wil G. Pansters (ed.) Violence, Coercion, and State-making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012) Contemporary Mexican Politics, (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008). Second edition, 2011, Co-authored with Emily Edmonds; “Judicial Reform in Mexico: Change and Challenges in the Judicial Sector,” in Mexican Law Review, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, Volume IV, Number 1. (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2011); “National and Public Security in Mexico,” in Roderic Ai Camp (ed.) The Handbook of Mexican Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Justiciabarómetro: Resultados de la encuesta a la policia municipal preventiva de la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara (2009) co-authored with Marcos Pablo Moloeznik and María Eugenia Suárez de Garay;  Contemporary Mexican Politics (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008) co-authored with Emily Edmonds-Poli; Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) edited with Wayne Cornelius; Evaluating Accountability and Transparency in Mexico: National, Local, and Comparative Perspectives (Trans-Border Institute, 2007) edited with Alejandra Ríos Cásares.