Sebastián L. Mazzuca is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University. He graduated in Political Science (MA, PhD) and Economics (MA) from the University of California at Berkeley and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Academy for International and Area Studies. His work focuses on state formation, regime change, and economic development. On state formation, he published the book Latecomer State Formation: Political Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin America with Yale University Press (2021). On political economy, he edited three volumes of essential readings with the Corporación Andina de Fomento (2015-18). On democratization, he co-authored A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap with Gerardo Munck (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His articles have been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in International Comparative Development, Journal of Democracy, Hispanic American Historical Review, Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, and The Oxford Handbook of Political Science.