I am an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at Leiden University. Before taking this position, I was an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Lake Forest College (Illinois, USA). I received my Ph.D. from Leiden University in 2021. I am a researcher in comparative politics working on political institutions and representation with Latin America as my regional focus. My research and teaching lie at the intersection of representation, identity, ethnicity, and institutions. I deploy a broad set of methodological tools in my work, chiefly qualitative methods (e.g., interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis), which I combine with various other methodologies, including natural language processing, network analysis, and experimental methods.
I study women’s representation and party organizations. I am particularly interested in the barriers women face when participating in politics and how different stakeholders affect their experiences. I am interested in political parties’ survival, their linkages to voters, and the determinants of candidate selection (gender perspective). I also study group identity construction (at the individual and group level) and how these identities affect party formation and persistence, the linkages between parties and voters, and inter-group relations.
I specialize in teaching qualitative methods at the graduate level, introductory and mid-level seminars on Comparative Politics, Women’s Representation, and Latin American Politics, and advanced-level seminars on women’s representation and political parties and democracy with a regional focus in Latin America. My work is entirely bilingual: I research, write, and teach in English and Spanish.
Before starting my career in academia, I served as second secretary alternate representative of Ecuador at the Ecuadorian Mission to the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., until I joined the Permanent Mission in July 2012. My work there concentrated on negotiating inter-American human rights conventions.
PhD in Political Science, 2021
Leiden University
MSc in Political Science (cum laude), 2015
Leiden University
BSc in Sociology with a minor in Political Science, 2011
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador
Peer reviewed articles
Abad, A., Aldaz, R., Davila Gordillo, D., Vallejo Vera, S. (2022). “Un deja-vu no esperado: la política ecuatoriana en 2021.” Revista De Ciencia Política. doi
Abad, A., Aldaz, R., Davila Gordillo, D., Vallejo Vera, S. (2021). “Believe in me: Parties’ Strategies During a Pandemic.” Journal of Politics in Latin America 13(3), 419-441. doi
Book Chapters
Davila Gordillo, D., & Wylie, K., (2021). Party leadership and institutionalization in Latin America. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press. doi
Davila Gordillo D. & Ragazzi F. (2017). The Radicalisation Awareness Network: Producing the EU counter-radicalisation discourse In: Carrera S., Mitsilegas V. (Eds.) Constitutionalising the Security Union Effectiveness, Rule of Law and Rights in Countering Terrorism and Crime. Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). 54-63. PDF
Under review
Semi-supervised machine-learning models to detect covert and overt racism in large corpora (with Sebastián Vallejo Vera and Joan C. Timoneda)
Gender Quotas, Party Strategy, and Women Candidates (with Sebastian Vallejo Vera)
Working Papers
The surprising new votes for Pachakutik in 2021: the indigenous voters, and segmented mobilization strategies. Paper manuscript
Who votes for Pachakutik? Ethnic voting in Ecuador. Paper manuscript.
The Ecuadorian paradox of recognition: the fragmentation of the indígena category. Paper manuscript with Frank de Zwart.
Polarization and Party-System Populism: the Case of Ecuador. Paper manuscript with Angélica Abad, Raúl Aldaz, and Sebastián Vallejo.
Non-peer reviewed publications
Davila Gordillo, D. (2021). Elecciones presidenciales en el Ecuador: flashback al pasado y un futuro incierto . In Voz y Voto.
Abad, A., Aldaz, R., Davila Gordillo, D., Vallejo, S., (2021). Ecuador: cómo diferenciarse cuando compites con 16 candidatos . Agenda Pública
Research Projects
Principal investigator, project: “Attitudes towards Venezuelan migrants among the Ecuadorian youth: Challenging the criminalization of immigrants”. Project funded by the EGAP LATAM Regional Hub Small Grants Fund
Data Projects
Data on Ecuadorian political parties for The Political Party Database country coordinator with Sebastian Vallejo Vera
Ecuadorian Electoral Data: 2021 Election with Sebastian Vallejo Vera
Geo-Party-Links Ecuador 2021 with Angelica Abad, Raul Aldaz, and with Sebastian Vallejo Vera. Data on mobilization strategies used by parties and candidadres during the 2021 national election in Ecuador (forthcoming).
Online Appendix
Chapter 4 appendix ecological inference estimations
Chapter 5 appendix Pachakutik’s appeals data and chronology of events
Chapter 6 appendix Pachakutik at the legislature in 2002 and comparison with Izquierda Democratica, and Izquierda Democratica and Pachakutik comparison
Lake Forest College
2023-2024
Introduction to Comparative Politics
Women, Institutions, and Politics
Latin American Politics
2022-2023
Introduction to Comparative Politics (x3)
Women, Institutions, and Politics
Latin American Politics
Leiden University
Master Seminars
2021 - 2022
Lecturer: Qualitative Research Methods (x2)
2020 - 2021
Lecturer: Qualitative Research Methods (x4)
2019 - 2020
Lecturer: Qualitative Research Methods (x2)
Bachelor Seminars
2021 - 2022
Lecturer: Bachelor Project Seminar: Democracy in Latin America
Lecturer: Introduction to Comparative Politics (x2)
2020 - 2021
Lecturer: Bachelor Project Seminar: Democracy in Latin America
2019 - 2020
Lecturer: Party Politics in Latin America
2018 - 2019
Lecturer (x3)
Academic Skills: Introduction to Political Science
2017-2018
Lecturer (x4) Academic Skills: Critical Review
Lecturer (x3) Academic Skills: Book Review
2016-2017
Lecturer (x3): Workgroups of International Security
Lecturer (x3): Workgroups of Comparative Analysis of Political Systems
Human Rights in the Inter-American System
As Second Secretary Alternate Representative of Ecuador to the Organization of American States (OAS) I was assigned as principal negotiator of Inter American Conventions of Human Rights and as one of the Ecuadorian representatives at the Committee of Juridical and Political Affairs (CAJP) of the OAS Permanent Council.
I was involved in the final negotiations of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance A-68, and the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance A-69 which were negotiated at the same time. Both Conventions were adopted and open for signature at the 2013 OAS General Assembly in Antigua Guatemala. Ecuador signed both conventions during the General Assembly.
I was also part of the the negotiations of the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons which was adopted in 2015 during the OAS General Assembly in Washington D.C., USA. Ecuador ratified the Convention in March 2019.