Rachel Bowen is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the OSU Mansfield campus. She teaches about American and comparative politics, constitutional law, and gender & politics. Dr. Bowen pursues research on the intersection of law and politics with a special focus on Latin America. Her research focuses on judicial independence and judicial activism, Central American politics, state responses to gendered crime in Latin America, and judicial networks.  

Dr. Bowen has field experience in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Her major publications include The Achilles Heel of Democracy: Judicial Autonomy and the Rule of Law in Central America (Cambridge University Press, 2017); Judicial Autonomy in Central America: A Typological Argument (Political Research Quarterly, 2013); and International Imposition and Transmission of Democracy and Rule of Law: Lessons fom Central America (in Globalizing Justice: Critical Perspectives on Transnational Norms and the Cross-Border Migration of Legal Norms, eds. Michael Tolley, Donald Jackson, Mary Volcansek, SUNY University Press, 2010).