John Polga-Hecimovich

John Polga-Hecimovich
United States Naval Academy

John Polga-Hecimovich is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy, where he has also been the director of the Forum for Latin American Studies. John has an MA in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Andina Simon Bolívar in Ecuador and received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. John’s research studies the effects of political institutions on democratic stability, policymaking, and governance, with a focus on Latin America. He has published peer-reviewed articles in places such as The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Democratization, Latin American Politics and Society, and the Latin American Research Review, as well as dozens more editor-reviewed articles, book chapters, policy papers, and op-eds.

Outside of the classroom, John has given briefings to the US State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and US Southern Command on issues related to Latin American politics, and he served as electoral systems expert for the Organization of American States electoral observation to Ecuador in 2019. John is an executive committee member of the Venezuelan Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association, and he has participated in several working groups examining Venezuela’s political crisis for DC-area think tanks. He has been quoted in the national press, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and The Atlantic Monthly, among others. A native English speaker, John is fluent in Spanish and also speaks Portuguese.