Valentin Figueroa

I am the Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor of Political Science at MIT.

I hold a PhD in Political Science from Stanford University (2022). I am from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I received a B.A. from Universidad de San Andrés (2014) and an M.A. from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (2017).

valfig@mit.edu · CV

Portrait of Valentin Figueroa

Publications

Art as Data in Historical Social Science
202x · Perspectives on Politics
Self-Governing Cities and Capital Accumulation in Medieval Europe
202x · Journal of Economic History · with Gary W. Cox
Oppression Beyond Plantations: The Effect of Emancipation on Incarceration in Urban Buenos Aires
2026 · Journal of Politics 88(4) · with Guadalupe Tuñón
Does Proportionality Increase Turnout? A Study of Adaptation to Oscillating Electoral Systems
2025 · Comparative Political Studies 58(10): 2266–2295
The Opposite of Containment: Electoral System Change in Argentina's 1912 Democratic Transition
2025 · Latin American Politics and Society 67(3): 26–44
The Inquisition and the Decline of Science in Spain
2025 · Explorations in Economic History 98 · with Gary W. Cox
Agglomeration and Creativity in Early Modern Britain
2025 · Explorations in Economic History 95 · with Gary W. Cox
The Protestant Road to Bureaucracy
2023 · World Politics 75(2): 390–437
The Consolidation of Royal Control: Evidence from Northern Castile, 1352–1787
2021 · European Review of Economic History 25(3): 447–466
Political Fragmentation, Rural-to-Urban Migration and Urban Growth Patterns in Western Eurasia, 800–1800
2021 · European Review of Economic History 25(2): 203–222 · with Gary W. Cox
Political Corruption Cycles: High-Frequency Evidence from Argentina's Notebooks Scandal
2021 · Comparative Political Studies 54(3–4): 482–517
Electoral Proximity and the Political Involvement of Bureaucrats: A Natural Experiment in Argentina, 1904
2016 · Journal of Politics in Latin America 8(1): 69–94

Book Project

The Protestant Road to Bureaucracy: Ecclesiastical Confiscations and State Building in Early Modern Europe

Selected Working Papers

Religious Orders in the State-Making Process
with Edilson Figueiredo and Marcos Salgado
Structural Transformation and Value Change: The British Abolitionist Movement
with Vasiliki Fouka