Javier

Martínez Cantó

I am a political scientist working on comparative political institutions at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP), part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Before that, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Konstanz, Salamanca, and IBEI universities. During the 2022-2023 Winter Semester, I served as Interim Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Konstanz. Moreover, during the academic course 2023-2024, I was the inaugural Ramón Areces Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. 

I earned my doctorate from the University of Bamberg–Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences.  For my dissertation, I received the Juan Linz Prize from Spain's Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies and the Hans-Löwel-Preise from the University of Bamberg. I studied my BA and MA at the University of Valencia and Pompeu Fabra, respectively. I also developed research stays at Princeton University and the University of Vienna. 

My research explores the nexus of political representation, party politics, and the territorial distribution of power, with a focus on how personal characteristics of political elites interact with institutional settings to impact descriptive and substantive representation. I am particularly interested in how marginalized groups can enhance their influence. My research has been published in leading academic journals like Comparative Political Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Party Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Additionally, I am a member of the Quality of Democracy research group (Q-Dem) at the University of Barcelona.