People Feature

J. Luis Rodriguez

Politics Academic Visitor
Assistant Professor of International Security and Law, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University

J. Luis Rodriguez is an assistant professor of international security and law at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and a politics academic visitor at Oxford University’s Nuffield College. He studies how weaker states participate in the international order, seeking security institutions that address threats while constraining great powers. His research focuses on Latin America and spans humanitarian intervention, nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, and arms control, alongside cross-national survey research on nuclear attitudes. His first book, Orders to Protect: Latin America, Humanitarian Intervention, and Constraints on Great Powers, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Perspectives on Politics and International Affairs, and his policy writing in outlets such as The Washington Post and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dr. Rodriguez is an adjunct non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Program on Nuclear Issues and an affiliate of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de México. Before his academic career, he served as a junior advisor to the Mexican Vice-Minister for Latin American Affairs.

J. Luis Rodriguez

Publications

 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • “NATO’s Nuclear Types: A Typology of Tactics for Alliance Management,” with Lauren Sukin and Stephen Herzog, Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 519–538. Part of the special issue “NATO, Small States, and the Third Nuclear Age.”
  • “Beyond the Deterrence-Disarmament Dichotomy: The Complex Landscape of Global Nuclear Preferences,” with Lauren Sukin and Stephen Herzog, Perspectives on Politics, 2026, pp. 1-21.
  • “Mexico and the Balancing of Nuclear Perils and Promises in the 1960s,” Cold War History Journal, 2025, pp. 1-22.
  • “International Order and Latin American Reticent Support for Ukraine,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 43, no. 4, 2024, pp. 292–295.
  • “Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones and the Issue of Maritime Transit in Latin America,” with Elizabeth Mendenhall, International Affairs, vol. 98, no. 3, 2022, pp. 819-836.
    • Named “Editor’s Choice.”
    • Winner of the 2024 Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Award for Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation Research by the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • “Crafting Constraints: Latin American Support for Humanitarian Intervention Norms,” Third World Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 5, 2022, pp. 1217-1235.
  • “Contemporary Humanitarians: Latin America and the Ordering of Responses to Humanitarian Crises,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 35, no. 5, 2022, pp. 721-740. Part of the special issue “The Liberal International Order and the Global South: A View from Latin America.”
  • “Limitar las armas: Sobre la formulación de normas internacionales en contra de la proliferación nuclear de América Latina,” Foro Internacional, vol. 60, no. 1, 2020 pp. 97-137.

 

Editor-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • “Latin America and Contemporary Nuclear Challenges,” Texas National Security Review, vol. 8, no. 4, 2025, pp. 113-120.
  • “Arms Control Lessons from Latin America,” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 4, 2024, pp. 177-193. Paper for the Arms Control and Emerging Technologies Working Group, part of the Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence Research Network at Harvard Belfer Center.
  • “The Liberal International Order and the Global South, A View from Latin America,” with Christy Thornton, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 35, no. 5, 2022, pp. 626-638.

 

Organized Peer-Reviewed Volumes