I am a Full Professor with the Methods Lab at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) Sede Mexico. My research is interdisciplinary by nature, and I identify both as a political scientist and as a human geographer, the two fields in which I trained during my doctorate. For a long time, my work centered on questions of cooperation in natural resource governance. This concern with collective action, institutional analysis, and commons governance remains a foundational part of my scholarship, particularly in relation to sanitation, wastewater, and bottled water. In recent years, however, my research agenda has broadened and deepened to focus on the governance of essential services and infrastructures such as water, waste, health, and care, under conditions of austerity, scarcity and inequality.
Over the course of my career, I have examined multiple cases of policy transfer, diffusion and circulation; the design and use of policy instruments, the economic geography of industrial restructuring in leather and footwear clusters, and the politics of transnational environmental activism. In addition, I have studied the governance of bottled water, informal waste pickers’ varied relationships with local governments, the role of pharmacy-adjacent doctors’ offices (PADOs) as substitutes for public health services, the governance of homelessness, and the conditions under which vulnerable populations decide to engage in climate-related mobility. All of these represent alternative or emergent forms of governance that arise in response to infrastructural failure, environmental stress, and weak regulatory regimes. These cases illustrate how frontline bureaucrats, communities, and vulnerable populations navigate complex institutional arrangements, negotiate service provision, and reshape policy in practice.
I study how frontline bureaucrats, vulnerable populations and the general public navigate and negotiate service delivery challenges, which often reshape policy in practice. While ethnography anchors much of my work, I also employ a wide range of methods: field experiments, focus groups, survival analysis, qualitative content analysis, and comparative case studies, among others. This methodological pluralism allows me to capture the complexity of these wicked problems from multiple vantage points.
My scholarship lies at the intersection of space, public policy, environment, and society, and I cross disciplinary boundaries to better understand how governance actually unfolds on the ground. By integrating grounded fieldwork with comparative and quantitative perspectives, I seek to illuminate the everyday politics of policy implementation and to contribute to broader debates in public policy, public administration, and other social sciences.
From August 2020 to June 2024 I was Associate Professor (with tenure) at FLACSO Mexico. From July 2012 to July 2020 I was Assistant Professor in the Public Administration Division of the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching, CIDE (Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, CIDE, AC) based out of CIDE Region Centro in Aguascalientes, Mexico, where I am now affiliate faculty (and still teach some courses). I am now affiliate faculty, and from 2006 until 2012 I was a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at The University of British Columbia and affiliated faculty in the Latin American Studies Program at UBC . From January 2010 until February 2011, I also held the position of Regional Director, Western Canada, for the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP) while also being CIELAP’s Lead Researcher on Water and Climate Change.
I have been Editor for the Americas of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, I’m Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies, Assistant Editor of Policy Design and Practice.
I sit on the editorial boards of International Studies Quarterly, International Journal of Public Administration, Policy & Politics, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Public Administration Quarterly, Global Environmental Politics, Politics, Groups and Identities; Administrative Theory & Praxis; Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies, Case Studies on the Environment, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, and the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. I have also been on the editorial boards of Water International (2008-2023) and International Studies Review (2018-2023)
I hold the distinction of National Researcher Level 2 in Mexico’s National Researchers System (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, SNI) of the National Council for Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACyT). I’m also a member of the Evidence in Governance and Politics network of researchers and practitioners and I sit on the Steering Committee of the Household Water Insecurity Research Coordination Network (HWISE-RCN).
My previous research projects have focused on wastewater governance, comparative environmental policy in North America, industrial restructuring, urban sustainability and environmental NGO mobilizations. You can read more about my research interests here. My current projects include a study of the global politics of sanitation, an analysis of intractable water conflicts in Mexico, an investigation of polycentricity theory (advancing the work done by the late Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom), and its applicability to Mexican water governance, a global study on the politics of privatization and remunicipalization of water supply, a project on the role of transnational private and non-state actors in North American environmental governance and a study of informal waste picking in Latin America.
I have been a member of the Consultative Group for the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC)’ North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry and a participant in the Canadian National Water Strategy Meetings.
My research and teaching interests include environmental politics, public policy, water governance, solid waste management, urban and economic geography and comparative and global environmental politics. You can read more about my current projects here. My geographical areas of expertise and focus are within North America (Canada, US, Mexico) although in recent years I have gained an interest in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile). I consider myself a comparativist and my methodological tools include quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as some expertise in geographical information systems (GIS), and more recently, field experiments (particularly persuasion). I undertake research that is broad and interdisciplinary in theoretical frameworks, with a strong foundation in empirical research methods and a policy-oriented approach to environmental problem-solving.
I am passionate about undertaking applied, empirical work from which we can draw theoretical insights that advance our understanding of global environmental governance. My goal is to contribute to societal welfare through my scholarship. I am an ardent advocate of Open Access and you can access and read many of my scholarly publications through my Academia.Edu page.
I am also an enthusiast of social media in academia. I promote the #ScholarSunday and #MyResearch hashtags on Twitter. On the personal side of things, I am the proud uncle of nine nieces and nephews, a former competitive volleyball player and dancer. In my non-existent spare time, I enjoy volunteering for literacy programs for adults, mental health advocacy and queer youth support programmes.
BRIEF BIO: (205 words)
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega is a Full Professor in the Methods Lab of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO) Sede Mexico. He is a specialist in comparative public policy and focuses on North American environmental politics, primarily sanitation and water governance, solid waste management, neoinstitutional theory, transnational environmental social movements and experimental methods in public policy. Dr. Pacheco-Vega’s research focuses on the governance of essential services and infrastructures—such as water, waste, health, and care—examined through ethnographic. comparative, mixed methods and experimental approaches. His work highlights how vulnerable populations and frontline bureaucrats navigate scarcity, inequality, and institutional constraints, bringing attention to the everyday politics of policy implementation. He has been Editor for the Americas of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (JESS), Assistant Editor for Policy Design and Practice. He also sits on the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly, International Journal of Public Administration, Policy & Politics, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Global Environmental Politics, Public Administration Quarterly, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Administrative Theory & Praxis, Regions and Cohesion, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, and Politics, Groups & Identities. He sat on the Executive Committee of the Environmental Studies Section of ISA in 2013-2015 as well as 2021-2023, and chaired the ESS Sprout Committee in 2016 and 2021 and 2022. He is a member of the Mexican National Researchers’ System (SNI), and holds the distinction of National Researcher Level 2.
SHORT BIO TO INTRODUCE ME AT TALKS:
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega is a Full Professor in the Methods Lab of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO) Sede México. He is a specialist in comparative public policy and focuses on North American environmental politics, primarily sanitation and water governance, solid waste management, neoinstitutional theory, transnational environmental social movements and experimental methods in public policy. He is a member of the Mexican National Researchers’ System (SNI), and holds the distinction of National Researcher Level 2.
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