Raul is a Mexican interdisciplinary sociologist and political scientist who focuses on the nexus between socioeconomic inequalities and conflicts. He is currently a Teaching Fellow, War Studies Department, King’s College London. His analytical lenses span international political economy, critical policy analysis, history of ideas, analytical Marxism, and stratification sociology.

Raul is currently researching several topics, mainly on youth recruitment by criminal organisations and labour market inequalities in the Latin American drug wars. He also focuses on climate change politics, teachers’ education policy, civil-military relations and austerity, inequalities and criminal violence, and international politics of the war on drugs. Moreover, Raul is commencing to craft a research agenda on the political theory of existential risk and human nature discourses due to the climate change crisis.

In his previous work, he has discussed criminal wars in Latin America, schooling and homicide, the political economy of drug wars, youth, economic policy, human rights, higher education funding, civil-military relations in United Nations peacekeeping operations, disaster management and climate change, peace-making with the Colombian drug cartels, and Mexican politics.

Raul holds a PhD in Sociology of War from the School of Security Studies in King’s College London (KCL), a master’s degree in political science from El Colegio de México and a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration from the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM).

Research Interests

México, Central America, and Latin America focus

• The political economy of conflict

• Sociology of armed groups

• The political economy of drug wars

• Youth, masculinities and violence

• Occupational social mobility

• Civil-military relations

• Mexican Politics

• Politics of inequality

• Peacekeeping and peacebuilding

• Education policy

• Foreign policy

• Political identities and cooperation

• Politics of climate change policy

Publications 

Peer-reviewed articles

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl & Vargas Pineda, Luis Roberto (2025). “Rushing Infrastructure Projects Under Austerity: The Militarization of the Mexican Public Administration During AMLO’s Government“, Armed Forces & Society.

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl. (2024). “Organised Violence, Inequality and Work: Violence Specialists as a Classed Occupation”. Critical Sociology

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl (2024), “Escaping Precariousness: Criminal Occupational Mobility of Homicide Inmates During the Mexican Drug War“, Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-15.

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl (2023), “Conceptualising criminal wars in Latin America“, Third World Quarterly. V. 44, No 4, pp. 776-794.

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl & Pérez Ricart, Carlos A. (2023) “Effects of long-term development and schooling expansion on the decline in homicide rates: Mexico from 1950 to 2005“, Journal of Crime and Justice. Vol. 46. No. 1.

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl (2018), “Seven Explanatory Approaches about the Increasing of Violence in Mexico“, Política y gobierno, 25(1), January, pp. 185-211.

Book chapters

• Podder, Sukanya & Zepeda Gil Raúl (2024), “Working for ‘Minor Utopias’: Youth Employment in Sierra Leone and Liberia”, In Waldow, Valerie: Bargués, Pol & Chandler, David (cords). The Politics of Hope in the Anthropocene: Agency, Governance and Critique. Edinburgh University Press.

• Zepeda Gil, Raúl (2022), “Micro-dynamics and Political Economy of the Criminal War in Tierra Caliente, Mexico” in Solar, C., & Pérez Ricart, C.A. (Eds.). (2022). Crime, Violence, and Justice in Latin America (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003265672