About

Bio

I am a Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milan and Adjunct Professor at Sciences Po and at the University of Pau. ​Currently, I am also co-chair of the Standing Group on Political Regimes at SISP (Italian Political Science Association) and an Associate Research Fellow at ISPI. My main areas of research are authoritarianism, political regimes’ transformations and trajectories of democratization / autocratization, and the effects of sanctions and other forms of foreign pressure on these trajectories, with a regional focus on Africa.

Previously, I collaborated on a research project of the University of Sussex and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) on Violence, Elites, and Resilience in States Under Stress (VERSUS), focusing mostly on Ethiopia’s political crises and conflicts (2020-2022). In 2022, I received a PhD in Political Studies, with a dissertation on the internal decision-making processes in countries targeted by international sanctions. Prior to my PhD, I worked three years on global policy issues for the Africa Programme of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), the EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS), and the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town (SCCT).

Now based in Italy. Long ago, also in Brussels, Tehran, and Cape Town.

CV