David Carruthers

David Carruthers joined SDSU's Department of Political Science in 1995, the same year he received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Oregon.  His undergraduate degrees are in Latin American Studies and Sociology from Southern Oregon University, including one year of study abroad at the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico.

Specializing in comparative and international politics, Carruthers' research has focused on environmental politics and policy, particularly in Mexico and Latin America.  His dissertation, supported by a grant from the Sasakawa Foundation, examined alliances between environmental and indigenous organizations to promote sustainable agriculture and community autonomy in rural Mexico.

Research and teaching interests include Latin American and Inter-American politics, political economy and the environment (trade, globalization, sustainable development), agriculture and rural politics, social movements and NGOs, and environmental justice. 

One line of recent research is on the emergence of environmental justice movements in Latin America and the US-Mexico border region.  Another recent research focus has been the Mapuche Indians of southern Chile, in a collaborative project exploring social movements, relations with the state, and land and natural resource conflicts.

Recent and forthcoming publications include:

"Mapuche Protest, Environmental Conflict, and Social Movement Linkage in Chile." With Patricia Rodriguez. Third World Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 9, April 2009 (forthcoming).

"Testing Democracy's Promise: Indigenous Mobilization and the Chilean State." With Patricia Rodriguez. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, No. 85, October 2008 (forthcoming).

Environmental Justice in Latin America: Problems, Promise, and Practice.  David V. Carruthers, ed.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.  I also contributed two chapters:  "Popular Environmentalism and Social Justice in Latin America" (1-22), and "Where Local Meets Global: Environmental Justice on the US-Mexico Border" (137-160).

"La política ambiental mexicana: una panorámica," with José Urciaga García y Miguel Ángel Hernández Vicent. In Micheline Cariño and Mario Monteforte, eds., Del Saqueo a la Conservación: Historia Ambiental Contemporánea de Baja California Sur. Mexico City and La Paz: Instituto Nacional de Ecología, 2008: 67-97.

"The Globalization of Environmental Justice: Lessons from the US-Mexico Border." Society and Natural Resources, Vol. 21 No. 7, August 2008: 556-568.

"Environmental Justice and the Politics of Energy on the US-Mexico Border." Environmental Politics Vol. 16, No. 3, 2007: 394-413.

"From Opposition to Orthodoxy: The Remaking of Sustainable Development."  In John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg, eds., Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader Second Edition.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2005: 285-300. 

Dr. Carruthers is the Undergraduate Advisor for Latin American Studies, a member of the Latin American Studies Executive Committee, a member of the Phi Beta Delta honor society for international scholars, SDSU representative to the School for Field Studies, and is an occasional invited lecturer on the Oxford Study Abroad Programme.

He regularly teaches the graduate seminar on Developing Nations (661), Mexican Politics (568), Environmental Politics in Global Perspective (564), International Relations of Latin America (482), and the Politics of the Environment (334).  He sometimes teaches the core graduate seminar in Comparative Politics (655), the seminar in Latin American Politics (667), and Introduction to Comparative Politics (103).

Carruthers enjoys travel, music, cooking, jogging, and hiking.  He once believed he would enjoy restoration of the 1913 bungalow he shares with his wife Janet, but now that the plumbing works and the roof doesn't leak, he doesn't actually seem to be getting around to the rest of it.