Ignacio Lago is a Professor of Political Science and ICREA Research Fellow at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). His research interests include electoral systems, political behavior, federalism, and party politics. He has published in Public Opinion Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Economy, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, Regional Studies or Social Science Quarterly. His latest books are The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics (editor, 2020, OUP) and The Handbook on Decentralization, Devolution and the State (editor, 2021, Edward Elgar). He has been visiting professor at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia), Instituto de Ciencias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), Université de Montréal (Canada). Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Buenos Aires, Argentina), University of Sydney (Australia) and CIDE, División de Estudios Políticos (Mexico).

Research interests

Using mainly a quantitative and comparative approach, I examine the following issues:

- The political consequences of electoral laws: Institutional and sociological determinants of the number of parties that compete in a polity, strategic voting, partisan bias, coordination problems in electoral systems.

- Political Behaviour: Economic voting and accountability in mass elections, religious voting, determinants and consequences of turnout.

- Issues in Political Economy: Tax morale, composition of public spending, budget structure.

- Political Parties: Nationalization of parties and party systems, impact of decentralization on the organization of parties.

- Sports & Society: The convergence of sports and society.

- Decentralization: Consequences for governance.

Keywords

Decentralization, Elections, Electoral Systems, Institutions, Nationalization