Jacob Turner

PhD Political Science

Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

Jacob Turner is a researcher investigating the police, public security policies, and citizen-state interactions in the context of democratic regimes. His main interests are how the police influence public policies and how contact with armed agents of the state constructs ideas of citizenship. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Dove Human Development and Violence Research Centre at the Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel) in Fall of 2024 as a part of the Wellcome Trust “Lifecourse Determinants and Prevention of Violence” project.

His dissertation, "War in Words: Law, Order, and Iron Fist Politics in Brazil", investigates the participation of police officers in electoral politics in Brazil. Using a combination of survey experimental methods, semi-automated text analysis of electoral platforms, and qualitative interviews with dozens of candidates and public security professionals, the dissertation argues that the emergence of "security sector candidacies" is the result of a combination of "supply-shift" and "demand-shift" factors. While voters perceive police candidates as highly competent on salient issues such as fighting corruption and organized crime, the police themselves choose to enter as a form of labor organization and are more interested in protecting the material interests of their corporation than advocating tough-on-crime policies.

While his main focus is Brazil, Jacob has also published research on violence and state institutions focused on El Salvador and the United States.

Jacob's research has been generously funded by the NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) and a Fulbright Study/Research Grant, as well as internal grants from the Hellen Kellogg Institute for International Studies and The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts. His work has appeared in Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and Latin American Politics and Society, among others.

Education

• PhD, Political Science
  University of Notre Dame

• MS, Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics
  University of Notre Dame

• MA, Political Science
  University of Notre Dame

• BA, International Studies
  Rhodes College