I am a Brazilian social scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Konstanz. I study how legal institutions shape the politics of organized representation and its consequences for democratic governance. I am interested in both how states structure access for organized groups and how those groups mobilize to secure, expand, or defend their participation in policymaking and implementation. Drawing on institutional theory, comparative politics, and socio-legal analysis, my recent work explains variation in participatory arrangements and the institutionalization of corporatist policymaking, with a focus on new democracies. A secondary line of research engages conceptual and methodological debates on how institutions are theorized across social science and legal scholarship. I am a co-organizer of the Law and Political Economy network at the Law and Society Association.
At the University of Konstanz, I have been associated with the Zukunftskolleg, the Department of Sociology, and the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” since May 2024. I was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the FGV São Paulo Law School’s Center for Law and Political Economy. I studied law at the University of São Paulo (Ph.D., 2022; B.A., 2016), where I was associated with the Law and Policy Group. During my doctoral studies, I was a Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
Picture: Weekend Argus, 19 June 1993 edition
Keeping a Seat at the Table: Organized Groups and Policy Participation in New Democracies investigates who gains a seat in policymaking - and how law helps them keep it. The book traces how labor unions in South Africa, Brazil, South Korea, and Slovenia navigated political inclusion during and after democratic transitions, examining whether and when they mobilized for legal rules to safeguard their voice in participatory councils. These rules, what I call compulsory deliberation, explain why some councils endure while others collapse. In illuminating these dynamics, the book uncovers the legal foundations of participation and the role of civil society in shaping them.