I was born in Sevilla and grew up in San Fernando, Cádiz. At the age of 17, I left Spain to do the International Baccalaureate at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West. I did my BA at Franklin and Marshall College, an MSc at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), and my PhD at Cornell University.
I am Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Politics and IR and Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. I am the author of Social Democracy Inside Out (Oxford University Press, 2007) and, with Daniel Stegmueller, of Who Wants What? Redistribution Preferences in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
My articles have appeared in the Annual Review of Political Science, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and World Politics.
I have received a number of research awards, including a British Academy Research Development Award (2008-2010). I have been the Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor at Duke University/UNC-Chapel Hill, a Visiting Professor of Comparative Politics at the Centre d’Études Européennes (Sciences Po, Paris) and at the University of Vienna, a Visiting Professor in Political Science and Senior Fellow in the Program on Democracy (Yale University), a Visiting Senior Research Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics (Princeton University), and a fellow at the Summer Institute at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences (Stanford University).
My current research focuses on the causes and consequences of inequality, the determinants of redistribution preferences, the role of the welfare state in times of crisis, and insider-outsider politics.
