David Pion-Berlin

David Pion-Berlin, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Political Scientist at the University of California Riverside. He is a Fulbright scholar, and is well known for his writings on civil-military relations in Latin America. He has been a frequent visitor to the Southern Cone of Latin America, as well as Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, and Cuba. His first interview occurred in 1974, in the mountains above Tepoztlan, Mexico, where he and his intrepid team of curious students ventured into a tiny village to discover a former member of Emiliano Zapata's guerrilla force. He welcomed us into his home, and we learned of his exploits as a personal courier for the revolutionary leader. That wet Pion-Berlin's appetite for research, and he never looked back. He is the author of 10 books including most recently, Research Handbook on Civil-Military Relations (2024) co-edited with Aurel Croissant and David Kuehn, Military Missions in Democratic Latin America (2016) and Soldiers, Politicians, and Civilians: Reforming Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Latin America (2017, co-authored with Rafael Martinez). When he is not writing and teaching, he occasionally dabbles in oil and acrylic painting. For music fans, please note he attended the original Woodstock Festival, and is an avid follower of the Grateful Dead.