Associate Professor, Political Science

Biography    Teaching activities   

Dr. Mayer specializes in comparative politics and political ethnography. His research deals with social movements, labor politics, and state-society relations in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on Brazil and Mexico. Dr. Mayer’s current work focuses on: the manner in which people organize to advance their labor and social rights; the sociopolitical impacts of precarious and informal economic contexts (namely insecurity, marginalization, poverty, and violence); and on actor as well as governmental strategies designed to address the problematic consequences of labor precarity and informality. Dr. Mayer’s research has been published among other things in refereed academic journals such as: the Journal of Politics in Latin America, the Bulletin of Latin America Research, the Journal of Social Policy, the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. 

Furthermore, Dr. Mayer is co-founder and Executive Board Member of the RELAM (le Réseau d’études latino-américaines de Montréal, the Latin American Studies Network of Montreal,http://www.relam.ca/). He is also a member of Concordia University's Lab for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LLACS, http://www.llacs.ca/home.html). In addition, Dr. Mayer is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre d’études et de recherches sur le Brésil (CERB, affiliated with UQAM, https://unites.uqam.ca/bresil/), as well as Faculty Member of the Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID, affiliated with McGill University, https://www.mcgill.ca/isid/institute-study-international-development).

Research interests

Latin American politics; labor markets and formal & informal workers organizations; Brazil, Mexico, Argentina.

POLI 203              Introduction to Comparative Politics

POLI 301              Social Movements and Protest Politics 

POLI 379              Politics of Latin America

POLI 483              State & Society in Latin America

POLI 487F            Democracy and Regime Changes        

POLI 649/811A     Democracy and Regime Change

POLI 681G/811F   State and Social Movements in Latin America