Dr. Edwin Ackerman uses comparative-historical methods to understand how political identities form and become operative. He has studied this process in two contexts: political party formation in Latin America, and the historical trajectory of debates over ‘illegal’ immigration from the global South to the U.S. His works has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Language and Politics, and Contexts, and has been featured in National Public Radio (NPR), among other media outlets. He is currently working on a book manuscript that focuses on how mass political parties form and consolidate, developing a comparison between post-revolutionary Mexico and Bolivia. Edwin is a former MFP Fellow and Ford Fellow. He received his PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley.