Dr. Miguel Centellas is n Instructional Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi. He also serves as the Undergraduate Coordinator for Sociology in the Department.
Research Interests
Dr. Centellas is a specialist in political sociology in the department. His dissertation analyzed Bolivia’s unexpected political stability in the 1980s and 1990s (compared to its Andean neighbors Ecuador and Peru), and how reforms aimed at improving democratic governance contributed to a cycle of instability in the early 2000s that eventually led to the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president.
Since then, his research uses the Bolivian case to explore the relationship between democratization and political identity at the subnational level, and the role played by institutional and socioeconomic factors in that relationship. Overall, his work seeks to explore not only how democracies “work” (the kratos question), but also how political communities are established (the demos question).
Although his expertise is in Bolivian politics, Dr. Centellas' interests extend beyond Latin America. In a paper in Political Analysis, he and co-author Mihaiela Gugiu critiqued a number of democracy scores commonly used in cross-national research. Using a sample of 63 countries in Latin America and Europe across three decades, they established that existing democracy scores vary significantly and are only able to distinguish between democracies and non-democracies: they could not credibly evaluate different levels of democratic quality.
Additionally, Dr. Centellas is interested in the pedagogy of social science education. He has presented papers and offered workshops on how to integrate research methodology training into “content” courses, and have published research on the pedagogical value of simulations and critical writing exercises. His recent interest is in developing assessment tools to evaluate the impact of social science curricula on the development of “soft skills” and behaviors or attitudes (such as social capital and efficacy) among students.
Biography
Dr. Miguel Centellas was born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, during the last years of the Banzer dictatorship. Therefore, most of his life coincided with Bolivia’s democratization process. Yet he saw most of this from afar: his family immigrated to Saginaw, Michigan, when he was almost ten. But during periodic visits back, Dr. Centellas was fascinated by the social changes brought on by democracy (and neoliberal economic reforms). He graduated from Central Michigan University in 1997, with dual majors in Political Science and History with a minor in Latin American Studies, and earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Western Michigan University in 2007.
In 2003, Dr. Centellas was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for dissertation fieldwork in Bolivia. He arrived in Bolivia to conduct fieldwork in September 2003, just as the “gas war” that toppled then-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was escalating. During the following ten months, he witnessed radical and rapid political and social changes that forced a revision to his entire dissertation project. In 2006 Dr. Centellas was named a Graduate Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. While completing my dissertation, he accepted a visiting professorship of Latin American Politics at Dickinson College.
Dr. Centellas first arrived in Oxford, Mississippi, in 2009 as a Croft visiting professor. He was happy to return to the University of Mississippi in 2015. In 2024, Dr. Centellas left the Croft Institute to focus on Sociology full-time to serve as undergraduate advisor and expand the department political sociology offerings.
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Centellas, Miguel. 2022. “Bolivia: Between Reform and Revolution.”
2018. Miguel Centellas & Cy Rosenblatt. “Do Introductory Political Science Courses Contribute to a Racial ‘Political Efficacy Gap’? Findings from a Panel Survey of a Flagship University.” PS: Political Science & Politics 51 (3): 641-647.
2016. “The Santa Cruz Autonomía Movement: A Case of Non-Indigenous Ethnic Popular Mobilization?” Ethnopolitics 15 (2): 245-264.
2015. “Cycles of Reform: Placing Evo Morales’s Bolivia in Context.” Latin American Research Review 50 (1): 229-241.
2013. Mihaiela R. Gugiu and Miguel Centellas. “The Democracy Cluster Classification Index.” Political Analysis 21 (3): 334-349.
2012. Miguel Centellas and Gregory J. Love. “We’re Off to Replace the Wizard: Lessons from a Collaborative Group Project Assignment.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45 (3): 506-512.
2011. “Preaching What We Practice: Bringing Scope and Methods ‘Back In’.” PS: Political Science & Politics 44 (4): 817-822.
2010. “Pop Culture in the Classroom: American Idol, Karl Marx, and Alexis de Tocqueville.” PS: Political Science & Politics 43 (3): 561-565.
Chapters in Edited Volumes
2017. “Bolivian Politics: Continuities, Changes, and Contradictions.” In Harvey F. Kline, Christine J. Wade, and Howard J. Wiarda (eds.), Latin American Politics & Development, 9th ed. Westview Press.
2013. “Bolivia’s New Multicultural Constitution: The 2009 Constitution in Historical and Comparative Perspective.” In Michael S. Danielson, Todd Eisenstadt, Moisés Jaime Bailón Corres, and Carlos Sorroza Polo (eds.), Understanding Latin America’s Multiculturalism and Autonomy Movements. Oxford University Press.
Public Commentary & Scholarly Engagement
2017. “Bolivia’s Remarkable Political Stability.” AULA blog (Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, American University), March 23
2016. “Episode 18: Bolivian Politics,” Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast (hosted by Greg Weeks) December 30
2016. Co-Author, Recommendations for US-Latin America/Caribbean Policy, 2016 Elections, Global Americans US Scholars Working Group
2016. Guest, “Bolivia’s President Loses Key Referendum,” Worldview with Jerome McDonnell (WBEZ/NPR, Chicago), February 26
2016. “Evo Morales and the MAS’s Future.” Latin America Goes Global, February 18
Courses Taught
- SOC 101 Introductory Sociology
- SOC 306 Sociology of Democracy
- SOC 366 Political Sociology
- Inst 200 Thinking Globally
- Inst 207 Latin American Studies
- Inst 314 Topics in Latin American Studies
- Inst 381 Research Methods for Inst Majors
- Inst 421 Research Seminar I
Education
B.A. Political Science, Central Michigan University (1997)
M.A. Political Science, Western Michigan University (1999)
Ph.D. Political Science, Western Michigan University (2007)