Presenters
Valeriya Mechkova is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. Broadly, the focus of her research is democracy and development. Her dissertation examines the conditions under which descriptive representation works for achieving substantive representation using the case of women’s political empowerment and development outcomes women tend to prioritize. Mechkova has published scholarly articles in American Political Science Review, European Political Science Review, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Political Research Quarterly among others.
Petra Guasti is an Associate Professor for Democratic Theory at Charles University in Prague. In April 2021 she completed her (cumulative) habilitation — Democracy Disrupted — at the Goethe University Frankfurt. In March 2019, she completed an eight-month Visiting Democracy Fellowship at Harvard University’s Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her research focuses on the reconfiguration of the political landscape revolves around three themes – representation, democratization, and populism. Her research has appeared in Democratic Theory, Democratization, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, European Political Science, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, Politics and Governance, East European Politics, and elsewhere. She serves as an expert for Bertelsmann Foundation’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index and Sustainable Governance Indicators for over a decade, and V-Dem since 2018. In 2020 she has been appointed to the expert board of the Nation in Transit (Freedom House). As of August 2021 is Social Media Editor for Democratic Theory.
Dr. Rumena Filipova is Chairperson and Co-Founder of the Institute for Global Analytics in Bulgaria. She received a DPhil and MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in Politics, Psychology and Sociology from the University of Cambridge. Rumena’s main research interests focus on the politics and international relations of Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular reference to questions of identity, Constructivist IR theory, media and disinformation, the authoritarian influence exercised by Russia and China in the region. Her forthcoming book Constructing the Limits of Europe: Identity and Foreign Policy in Poland, Bulgaria and Russia since 1989 is forthcoming with Ibidem Verlag, distributed by Columbia University Press.
Gergana Dimova is an associate lecturer at the University of Winchester and an associate researcher at Oxford University. She received her PhD from Harvard University and has been a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. Her first book monograph is Democracy beyond Elections: Government Accountability in the Media Age and her forthcoming book is Political Uncertainty: A Comparative Exploration. She is the associate editor of the journal Democratic Theory and the convenor of the Anti-Politics Specialist Group of the UK Political Science Association.
Dr Enrique Peruzzotti PhD in Sociology, New School for Social Research is the Chair of the Department of political science and international studies at Torcuato Di Tella University in Argentina and researcher of CONICET. His research interests are in the area of democratization, with a regional focus on Latin America. More specifically, his work analyses transitions to democracy, the strengthening of existing political regimes via social accountability politics processes of democratic innovation, as well as on the challenges that contemporary expressions of populism pose to existing polities. He has published in numerous venues, including Global Governance, Citizenship Studies, Journal of Democracy, Human Rights Quarterly, Chinese Political Science Review, Journal of Latin American Studies and Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory.
Professor Rogério Christofoletti is a Professor at the Department of Journalism at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. Fellow at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), he is head of the Journalistic Ethics Observatory (objETHOS). Author and editor of 14 books and over 120 articles and book chapters on journalistic ethics, media accountability, media criticism and technology. E-mail: rogerio.christofoletti@ufsc.br
Professor Danilo Rothberg is professor of sociology of communication at Unesp (São Paulo State University), Brazil. He currently holds a productivity grant from CNPq (Brazilian Council of Scientific and Technological Development) for a research on environmental public communication and co-leads the project “Communication and Democracy”, funded by CAPES / Brazilian Ministry of Education and DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). E-mail: danilo.rothberg@unesp.br
Professor Fernando Oliveira Paulino is Professor at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, and Visiting Professor at the TU Dortmund, Germany (2020-2021), President of Brazilian Federation of Scientific and Academic Associations (SOCICOM), Vice President of Latin American Communication Researchers Association (ALAIC); mentored more than 120 students in graduate and undergraduate activities; published 53 scientific papers, 52 book chapters, and 16 books. E-mail: paulino@unb.br
Professor Carina Barbosa Gouvêa - Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Law at the Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD / UFPE); Post-Doctorate in Constitutional Law Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD / UFPE); Doctor and Master in Law from UNESA, Recife, Brazil.
Professor Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco - Professor of political theory at the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP) at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ); Professor of the Postgraduate Law Program at the Veiga de Almeida University (PPGD / UVA). Doctor of Political Science (IUPERJ), Master of Laws (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Lar
Lars Brummel works as a PhD candidate in the Utrecht School of Governance (USG) at Utrecht University. In his research, he has a strong focus on issues of democratic governance, with a particular interest for new forms of public sector accountability, citizen and stakeholder participation, and the governance and accountability of public agencies. As a PhD candidate, his research focuses on under which conditions public sector organisations are more inclined to societal and citizen-oriented forms of accountability.