Benjamin Garcia-Holgado
Resources and Links
Biography
Benjamín García‑Holgado, PhD (University of Notre Dame, 2023), joined the department in August 2023. His doctoral thesis, “The Judicial Bulwark: Courts and the Populist Erosion of Democracy,” earned the 2025 Edward S. Corwin Award from the American Political Science Association for the best dissertation in public law. His research and teaching interests are in political regimes, comparative judicial politics, populism, and qualitative methods, with a geographical focus on Latin America. More specifically, he is interested in (1) new ways of conceptualizing contemporary autocratization processes; (2) explaining the strategies populist leaders use to dismantle democracy; (3) identifying what strategies political parties, civil society actors, and judges can implement to stop executive encroachment; and (4) case‑study methodology and qualitative data‑gathering techniques. García‑Holgado approaches these topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on insights from public law, American political development, comparative‑historical sociology, and political history.
Recent Publications
2025. Garcia Holgado, Benjamin. “Overruling the Executive: Judicial Strategies to Resist Democratic Erosion.” Journal of Law and Courts: 1–30. doi: 10.1017/jlc.2024.30.
2024. Botero, Sandra and Benjamin Garcia Holgado. “Judges under Stress: The Argentine Supreme Court (2003-2023) and the Colombian Constitutional Court (2002-2023) amid Polarization.” International Journal of Constitutional Law. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moae076
2024. Garcia Holgado, Benjamin and Raul Sanchez-Urribarri. “The Dark Side of Legalism: Abuse of the Law and Democratic Erosion in Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela.” American Behavioral Scientist, 68(12), 1578-1596.
2024. Gamboa, Laura, Benjamín García-Holgado, and Ezequiel González-Ocantos. “Courts against Backsliding: Lessons from Latin America.” Law & Policy 46(4): 358–379.
2023. Garcia Holgado, Benjamin and Scott Mainwaring. “Why Democracy Survives Presidential Encroachments: Argentina since 1983”, Comparative Politics Vol.5, Issue 4, 525-548.
2023. Garcia Holgado, Benjamin and Raul Sanchez-Urribarri. “Court-Packing and Democratic Decay: a Necessary Relationship?,” Global Constitutionalism Vol. 12, Issue 2, 350-377.
2023. Garcia Holgado, Benjamin. “Radicalization and the Origins of Populist Narratives about the Courts: The Argentinian Case, 2007–2015,” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 3 no. 2 (Summer 2023), 43-64.
Research Interests
Democratization; Judicial Politics; Qualitative Methods; Latin American politics
