About Christian Cruzatti

I am a Fulbright scholar from Ecuador and currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University. My main fields of study have been political theory and comparative politics. My research interests include militant democracy, populism, and the limits of political pluralism. I am currently finalizing my dissertation, Fighting Left-Wing Populisms: Militant Democracy and Authoritarianism in Latin America, under the supervision of William E. Scheuerman (chair), Jeffrey C. Isaac, Aurelian Craiutu, and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer. I plan to finalize it by December 2025. By analyzing the use of militant measures in emergency contexts, my dissertation highlights how authoritarian regimes too often suspend fundamental rights not only against intolerant enemies but also against legitimate democratic actors. Before joining academia, I held senior government positions in Ecuador, including serving as a political and legal advisor to the Cabinet of the National Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Quito. In that role, I facilitated cooperation between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Commission of International Relations of the National Parliament, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Constitutional Court. I also served as head of the legal department for environmental affairs on the Ecuador-Colombia border in Esmeraldas. In addition to my government service, I was assistant professor of the History of Political ideas for the Department of Public Affairs during my master’s program at the University of Chile in Santiago, and I taught for four years as a professor of Theory of the State and Political Law at the University of Guayaquil, where I was awarded my Fulbright fellowship. These professional experiences deepened my interest in the limits of pluralism and political participation in contexts marked by persistent conflict and instability.