Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany) and a degree in Sociology from the Universidad de Chile. Prior to joining the Institute, he was Full Professor at Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Uppsala University, Sciences Po in Paris, the Free University of Berlin, and the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA).His area of specialization is comparative politics, with a particular focus on Europe and Latin America.

His research focuses on the study of populism from a comparative perspective, especially its relationship with democracy. He serves as Director of the “Laboratory for the Study of the Far Right” (Ultra-Lab), funded by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), and is Principal Investigator of a FONDECYT regular project (2026–2029) titled “Democracy Under Pressure: Understanding Far-Right Support and Rejection in Cross-Regional Perspective.” He is currently Director of Research and Graduate Studies at the Faculty of History, Geography, and Political Science.

Recent Publications