Laura Gamboa

Biography & Research

Laura Gamboa is associate professor of democracy and global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a core-affiliated faculty member of the Kellogg Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame (2016) and an M.A. in Latin American studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Gamboa’s research agenda is centered on questions related to the survival and quality of democratic systems. Her book "Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies against the Erosion of Democracy" (Cambridge University Press, 2022), analyzes how opposition strategic choices and goals can decisively affect the ability of potential autocrats to erode democracy. Her current research focuses on the drivers behind these tactical choices as well as opposition strategies to counteract subnational democratic backsliding. Her work has been published in Comparative Politics, Democratization, Political Research Quarterly, Electoral Studies, the Latin American Research Review, and the Journal of Democracy among other journals.

Gamboa has received important fellowships and awards such as Notre Dame’s Eli J. And Helen Shaheen Award in Social Science, University of Utah’s 2024 CSBS Superior Research Award, and the Harvard University DRCLAS Santo Domingo visiting fellowship. Her book received the Latin American Studies Association’s 2022 Donna Lee Van Cott Award for best book in political institutions and an honorary mention for the American Political Science Association’s 2023 Luebbert Book Award for best book in comparative politics.

Recent Work

• "New Forms of Democratic Backsliding: New Forms of Democratic Erosion in Latin America" (Cambridge University Press, co-authored with Rachel Schwartz)
• "Plebiscitary Override in Venezuela: Erosion of Democracy and Deepening Authoritarianism" (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science )
• "Couples Therapy for a Divided America: Assessing the Effects of Reciprocal Group Reflection on Partisan Polarization" (Political Behavior)
• "Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies against the Erosion of Democracy" (Cambridge University Press)
• “Tweeting Antagonism: (De) Polarizing Rhetoric and Tone in Colombia’s 2022 Presidential Campaign” with Sandra Botero and Lisa Zanotti (Latin American Politics and Society)
• “Courts against Backsliding: Lessons from Latin America” (Law & Policy, with Ezequiel González-Ocantos and Benjamín García Hurtado)
• “How Oppositions Fight Back” (Journal of Democracy)
• “When Handpicked Successors of Charismatic Leaders Prosper: The Surprising Success of Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia” (Democratization, with Caitlin Andrews-Lee)

Courses

• Keough School Seminar: Democracies and Dictatorships (undergraduate global affairs course)

News & Media

• "How to stop a dictator" (Yahoo! News)
• 3 Lessons From International Protests Amid Unrest in L.A. (The New York Times)
• How to Save a Democracy (Foreign Affairs)
• Lessons from Venezuela’s democratic collapse: how opposition movements can defy autocratic leaders
• Aspects of marriage counseling may hold the key to depolarizing, unifying the country, study finds
• "In South Korea, a Blueprint for Resisting Autocracy?" (The New Yorker)
• “How Guatemalans are Defending Their Democracy” (Journal of Democracy, with Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez)
• “El país que dejó Duque” (Razón Pública)
• “Colombia’s new president aims to swing his country left. It won’t be easy” (Good Authority, with Juan Albarracín and Sandra Botero)