Sonia Cardenas is Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives & Innovation, and Scott M. Johnson ’97 Distinguished Professor of Political Science; she directed Trinity's Human Rights Program from 2007-13. Working at the intersection of International Relations and Human Rights, her research explores the relationship between international norms and state practices around the world. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, in addition to opinion pieces and reviews. She is also the author of Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure (2007), Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope (2010), and Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of National Human Rights Institutions (2014), all from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Professionally, Cardenas is most active in advancing the interdisciplinary study of human rights. Before joining Trinity, she was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.

In her teaching, Professor Cardenas challenges her students to use a multiplicity of theories and methods to understand international politics. Her classes are highly interactive, with students debating controversial issues, engaging in simulations, designing research projects, and exploring links to other disciplines and the policy world. She strives to provide students with detailed direction and feedback, as well as the freedom to develop their own intellectual voices.

Publications:

Monographs

• Cardenas, Sonia. Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007; paperback edition, 2010.
• Cardenas, Sonia. Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010; paperback edition, 2011.
• Cardenas, Sonia.  Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of National Human Rights Institutions.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• Cardenas, Sonia. "State Compliance and National Human Rights Institutions in Multidisciplinary Perspectives on National Human Rights Institutions, State Compliance, and Social Change, Ryan Goodman and Thomas Pegram, eds. (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2011).
• Cardenas, Sonia.  "The Geneva Conventions and the Normative Tenor in International Relations," in The Geneva Conventions under Assault, Sarah Perrigo and Jim Whitman, eds. (London: Pluto Press, 2010), chapter 1.
• Cardenas, Sonia. "Human Rights and the State," in International Studies Encyclopedia, Robert Denemark, ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2010) [10,000 words].
• Cardenas, Sonia. "Mainstreaming Human Rights: Publishing Trends in Political Science." PS: Politics and Political Science (January 2009): 161-166. [Subject of "Political Scientists and Human Rights," Inside Higher Education, 20 January 2009.] 
• Cardenas, Sonia. "Human Rights in Comparative Politics," in Human Rights: Politics and Practice, Michael Goodhart, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).  2d ed., forthcoming.
• Cardenas, Sonia. "Sovereignty Transformed? The Role of National Human Rights Institutons," in Negotiating Sovereignty and Human Rights: Actors and Issues in Contemporary Human Rights Politics, Noha Shawki and Michaelene Cox, eds. (Ashgate Publishing, 2009).
• Cardenas, Sonia. "Violators’ Accounts: Hypocrisy and Human Rights Rhetoric in the Southern Cone.” Journal of Human Rights 5, 4 (2006): 439-451. 
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Constructing Rights? Human Rights Education and the State.” International Political Science Review 26, 4 (October 2005): 363-379.  [South African case]
• Cardenas, Sonia, and Andrew Flibbert. “National Human Rights Institutions in the Middle East.” Middle East Journal 59, 3 (Summer 2005): 411-436. 
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Norm Collision: Explaining the Effects of International Human Rights Pressure on State Behavior.” International Studies Review 6, 2 (June 2004): 213-231.
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Transgovernmental Activism: Canada’s Role in Promoting National Human Rights Commissions.” Human Rights Quarterly 25, 3 (August 2003): 775-790. 
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Emerging Global Actors: The United Nations and National Human Rights Institutions.” Global Governance 9, 1 (Winter 2003): 23-42. 
• Cardenas, Sonia. “National Human Rights Commissions in Asia.” In Sovereignty under Challenge: How Governments Respond, edited by John D. Montgomery and Nathan Glazer. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 2002).  Reprinted in Human Rights Review 4, 1 (Winter 2003): 30-51.
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Adaptive States: The Proliferation of National Human Rights Institutions.” Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Working Paper Series T-01-04 (2001), 56 pages.
• Cardenas, Sonia. “Combining Legal and Political Approaches: Recent Scholarship on Human Rights in Latin America.” Latin American Research Review 35, 3 (Spring 2000): 252-67.

• Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, June 2006
• Faculty research grants from Trinity College for national human rights institutions project, 2002-2003; and 2005-2008
• Faculty Affiliate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2002-2003; 2004-2005
• Fellow at Trinity’s Center for Collaborative Teaching and Research, Spring 2003
• Grant from the Canadian Studies Research Program, Foreign Ministry, Government of Canada, 2001-2002 
• Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2000-2001
• Grant from the Pacific Basin Research Center (formerly at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government), 2000-2001