Oscar Alvaro-Montes.

Oscar Alvaro-Montes, M.A.

Ph.D. Student, Instructor of Record

College
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science
Department
Global Studies
Office
Dugan Hall, Room 205-T

Expertise

Critical security studies, criminal governance, and social network analysis

Research Interests

  • Transnational organized crime
  • Criminal Governance
  • Socio-political theory
  • Mixed-methods

Education

Master of Arts (MA): International Studies, emphasis in Critical Security Analysis, Central European University, Austria
Expert: International Relations, Central European University, Hungary
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.): Political Sociology, University of the State of Mexico (UAEMex)
Certificate: Social Research Methods, University of Quilmes, Argentina

Biosketch

I am a Mexican researcher specialized in transnational organized crime and criminal governance in the Americas. I explore mixed methods with particular emphasis on social networks and trace analysis.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Excellence in Teaching award. (2015). Political Science Department. University of Massachusetts, Lowell
  • Gente con Valor award by the Government of the State of Mexico (2015)

Selected Publications

  • Homann, L., Alvaro-Montes, O. (2025). From Prison Gang to Transnational Criminal Organization. A Social Network Analysis of the Tren de Aragua. In: Aiello, L.M., Chakraborty, T., Gaito, S. (eds) Social Networks Analysis and Mining. ASONAM 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15213. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78548-1_10
  • Protestas sociales y violencia de género (casos de Colombia y México). 2022. (Iberoamerican Journal)
  • La ciencia política sirve para algo? Una reseña crítica del Libro, Populism: A political science manifiesto, (Revista Convergencia, 2022)

Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research

  • Civic Action Project Fellowship (Boston, US, 2024)
  • Soros Foundation grant/Central European University (Budapest, HU, 2019)
  • Guadalupe Hank Rhon Foundation grant (Mexico, 2013)
  • JIMA award (Argentina, 2012)

Research Currently in Progress

Expansion is not conquest. The logics of criminal expansion in the Americas.