118th American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition; Montréal, Québec, Canada

Title of Presentation: “Populists, Judges, and Democratic Erosion in Latin America and Eastern Europe”

Conference: 118th American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition; Montréal, Québec, Canada
September 15 – September 18, 2022

Conference Report:

Attending the 2022 APSA conference was an excellent academic and professional experience. First, I was able to go to many panels which were directly connected with my research agenda. For instance, on the first day of the conference, I attended the panel “Democratic Backsliding/Autocratisation: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?” By doing that, I became aware that Evelyn Huber is now working on democratic backsliding and I plan to contact her to read the paper she presented. Second, I was able to meet scholars who are working on populism and democratic erosion. We exchange ideas on the latest developments in this research agenda. For instance, I had an interesting conversation with Julio Carrion, who recently published a book on this topic. Moreover, the conversation with Carrion was particularly important since he is now leading a search committee for an assistant professor position at University of Delaware (I plan to apply to it). Also, I was able to reconnect with colleagues I met long ago and I have not seen again since 2019. Third, I presented two papers. The first one is a summary of my dissertation. I got terrific feedback from the discussant, the other members of the panel, and the audience (I was also lucky enough to have Natan Skigin and Luis Schenoni in the audience). The comments and questions I received are very useful at this stage in order to continue improving the weak points I have in my dissertation project. The second paper I presented is about court-packing and its relationship with democratic stability. In this case, the public was not numerous (the panel was scheduled at 8 AM on Sunday, the last day of the conference), but I still got very good feedback from Anibal Perez-Linan and Christina Bambrick, who are both professors at Notre Dame! Participating in this second panel was also especially important because I will submit this paper for publication very soon and the advice I got allowed me to introduce important changes to it. Finally, I attended a panel on “Applying for a Job At a Teaching-Oriented Institution”, from which I took very good tips for the job market.