Palestini, Stefano

Stefano holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences and a Master of Research from the European University Institute of Florence (Italy). He conducted postdoctoral studies at the Otto Suhr Institute at the Free University of Berlin (Germany). He holds a Licenciatura in Sociology from the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile).

His area of expertise lies in international politics with a focus on comparative regionalism. Currently, he is studying the role of regional organizations in coping with political crises within the context of a rise of illiberal democracies and electoral authoritarianism in the Americas and Europe. The project analyses the mechanisms through which regional organizations adopt and adapt global liberal norms of democracy and rule of law protection. Stefano is also interested in regional development policies, the political economy of regional development banks, and the politics of energy integration.

Stefano has been a research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at the American University (Washington, DC). He has also taught at the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Diego Portales, and the Helmuth Schmidt University (Hamburg, Germany). Between 2008 and 2010, he was a consultant at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP, Santiago de Chile).