I am an Assistant Professor of Politics at Lake Forest College in the United States of America; before joining the college, I was a lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University, the Netherlands, where I also received my Ph.D. I am a researcher in comparative politics working on representation (substantive and descriptive) with Latin America as my regional focus. I deploy a broad set of methodological tools in my work, chiefly qualitative methods (e.g., interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis).
A common theme connecting my multiple research projects is how diverse (intersecting) identities affect representation and democracy. My research interests lie in the supply and demand sides of representation and their effects on the construction of democratic citizenship. My research focusing on the demand side of representation addresses group identity construction. I study this at the individual level as well as at the group level. My work explores the construction, politicization, and change of identities at the individual level. I also study the effects of these changes on the organization of groups and their representation (e.g., the formation of political parties and social movements as tools of representation). I primarily advance the group-level perspective by examining the relationship between migration and democratic citizenship. My EGAP-funded project focuses on high-school students in Ecuador and explores how to engender empathy towards out-groups (e.g., migrants). My research on the supply side of representation addresses primarily the same theme but from an elite–party organization perspective. I study how political parties try to engage specific groups of voters while at the same time affecting their identity construction. Taking as a starting point the existence of intersecting identities (for instance, gender, ethnicity, and age), my work explores the choices parties make to engage voters holding multiple identities and how parties deploy these choices, i.e., the appeals they use.
I specialize in teaching qualitative methods at the graduate level, introductory and mid-level seminars on Introduction to Comparative Politics, Women’s representation, and Latin American Politics, and advanced level seminars on 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 at the Ecuadorian Mission to the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C. as Second Secretary Alternate Representative of Ecuador. I joined the Permanent Mission in July 2012. My work there concentrated on the negotiation of 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)
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.
“Covert racism in Ecuador”. Paper manuscript with Sebastián Vallejo and Joan Timoneda
Women voting for women? Ecuadorian women voting preferences. Paper manuscript with 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
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.