Alonso Román Amarales
POLITICAL SCIENTIST
Welcome!
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where I work on the ERC-funded PERGAP project. I received my Ph.D. in Social and Political Science from Università Bocconi in 2026, graduating cum laude. My research lies at the intersection of political science, economics, and demography, with a focus on how migration, population ageing, and polarization shape democratic resilience. My work has been published in PNAS, Research & Politics, and Economics of Education Review, among other journals, with a forthcoming article in the European Journal of Political Research.
Broadly, my work investigates the causes and consequences of far-right success, including how cultural diversity affects support for exclusionary politics, how generational divides influence perceptions of democratic legitimacy, and how far-right victories affect social cohesion and minority rights. My research combines experimental and quasi-experimental methods, cross-national survey data, and geocoded administrative records from Europe and the Americas.
Before starting my Ph.D., I worked at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., where I led the design and implementation of student assignment systems and co-authored research on education finance and accountability. I also served as a data analyst at Chile’s Superintendence of Education and as a researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies, where I studied spatial inequality and urban segregation. I hold a BA and an MA in Economics from Universidad de Chile, where I graduated first in my class.
Feel free to contact me at roman.amarales@gmail.com