Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Salamanca (2019), cum laude with an international mention, with research stays at the University of Pittsburgh and LMU Munich. He holds a BA in Political Science and Administration from the University of Valencia (2014) and a Master's Degree in Political Science from the University of Salamanca (2015). He has previously been a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He is also the editor of the Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública, Course instructor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, and member of the Evaluation and Verification Commission of the Social and Legal Sciences II Branch at the Fundación para el Conocimiento Madri+d. His research lines include comparative politics, democracy, and elites, with a regional specialization in Latin America.

PABLO OÑATE’S SHORT BIO (pablo.onate@uv.es)

Pablo Oñate is full professor of Political Science at University of Valencia (starting 2007). He graduated in Law and got his PhD in Political Science at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1996).

He is the author, co-author and editor of a number of books (last one, Federalism, Devolution and Multilevel Government, 2018 -coedited with Guy Lachapelle), and the author or co-author of more than 90 national and international journal articles and book chapters, dealing with democracy, political parties, elections and electoral systems, political behavior, political representation, legislatures, political elites, etcetera. He has been visiting researcher at Georgetown University and George Washington University (USA), Oxford University, London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur and Universidad de Veracruz (México), Universidad René Moreno (Bolivia), as well as in a number of universities in Spain.

He worked as an institutional consultant and an international electoral observer Bosnia Herzegovina, Myanmar and in several Latin-American countries, as well as academic advisor del Administration and Cost of Elections Project (ONU). He has also been institutional advisor in Spain (Ministry of Education, National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation, Convenio Andrés Bello, Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development. He was academic director of the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Marañón and its University Research Institute.

He participated in a large number of research projects (both national and international, being project leader in a number of them) and presented more than 150 papers in national and international scientific conferences. Currently, he participates in a European Union capacity and institutional building project in Latin America, and is the project leader of another one in Tunisia and South Mediterranean (each financed with over one million Euros).

He was the Secretary General of the Spanish Political Science Association (2005-2013), the President of the European Confederation of Political Science Associations (ECPSA) (2013-2019), and currently is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (since July 2018). He was the Academic Coordinator of the CIS-RCC Harvard University Summer Seminar on Sociological and Political Research (2015-2016-2017-2018).

Dr Clara PORTELA specialises in International Relations and teaches Political Science at the Law School of the University of Valencia, having previously served as a professor at Singapore Management University and as a research fellow with the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris. Her research focuses on multilateral sanctions, arms control and EU foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and an MA from the Free University of Berlin. She is the recipient of the THESEUS Award for Promising Research on European Integration, and her article with M. Onderco on 'External Drivers of Differentiated Co-operation' in EU foreign policy was shortlisted for the 2024 Bernard Brodie Prize. Clara Portela was the inaugural Konrad Adenauer Visiting Scholar at Carleton University's Centre for European Studies in Ottawa, Canada. Previously, she was a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, SciencesPo Grenoble, SciencesPo Lyon, SciencesPo Paris, Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and the University of Innsbruck. She has consulted for the European Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, the Office of the Prime Minister of Finland, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan, and has advised the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the European Parliament as well as civil society organisations like Transparency International, Democracy Reporting, Civil Forum for Asset Recovery and Small Arms Survey. She has been a trainer in the executive programmes offered by the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the School of Transnational Governance in Florence, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.  

Recent publications include: 

Portela, C./ J.S. Mora-Sanguinetti, Aid Sanctions and Hybrid Regimes, Journal of Development Studies, online first, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2025.2481878

Palestini, S./ C. Portela, The Global South and the contestation of unilateral sanctions against Russia, Cooperation and Conflict, online first. https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/DVHBMS3ZFWEMVTGEIDP6/full

Holesch, A./ C. Portela, Money talks? The effectiveness of sanctions in the Rule of Law conflict in the European Union, Journal of Common Market Studies (2024) online first. http://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13693

Portela, C., The war over Ukraine and the transformation of EU governance, European Papers, 8(3), (2023), 1125-30, https://www.europeanpapers.eu/en/system/files/pdf_version/EP_EF_2023_I_035_Clara_Portela_00706.pdf

Portela, C./ J.S. Mora-Sanguinetti, Sanctions effectiveness, development and regime type, World Development 172, (2023), https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0305-750X(23)00188-2

Portela, C., Logiques des sanctions de l’Union européenne contre la Russie au sujet de l’Ukraine. Études Internationales, 54(2) (2023), 287–310.

Borzyskowski, I./ C. Portela, Global Governance from Below. Regional sanctions as drivers of UN sanctions, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 67(10) (2023), 1930-58, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027231153565

Portela, C./ A. Charron, The evolution of databases in the age of targeted sanctions, International Studies Review, 25(1), (2023), https://academic.oup.com/isr/article-abstract/25/1/viac061/6987069?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Onderco, M./ C. Portela, External drivers of EU differentiated cooperation: How change in the nuclear nonproliferation regime affects member states alignment, Contemporary Security Policy, 44(1) (2023), 150-75. [shortlisted for 2024 Bernard Brodie Prize], https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13523260.2022.2146336?tab=permissions&scroll=top

Portela, C., Are EU GSP withdrawals and CFSP sanctions becoming alike?, European Foreign Affairs Review, 28 (2023), 35-52, https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/European+Foreign+Affairs+Review/28.Special%20%20[pre-publication]/EERR2023013

Portela, C., The changing nature of CFSP sanctions, in A. Kellerhals et al. (eds) European Integration Perspectives in Times of Global Crises, Europa Institut, Zurich (2023), pp. 73-87. https://eizpublishing.ch/publikationen/european-integration-perspectives-in-times-of-global-crises/

Charron, A./ C. Portela (eds.) Multilateral Sanctions Revisited, Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2022.

Portela, C./ JL. Romanet Perroux, UN Sanctions and Mediation in Libya: Synergy or obstruction?, Global Governance 28(2) (2022), 228-250. https://brill.com/view/journals/gg/28/2/article-p228_5.xml

Portela, C./ T. Van Laer, The design and impact of individual sanctions: Evidence from elites in Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe, Politics and Governance, 10(1) (2022), 26–35. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4745

Portela, C., EU-Sanktionen gegen Russland: Ein Überblick über Evaluierungspraxis, Osteuropa 71 (10-12) (2022), 103-113.

Portela, C./ P. Pospieszna/ J. Skrzypczyńska/ D. Walentek, Consensus against all odds: Explaining the persistence of EU sanctions on Russia, Journal of European Integration, 43(6) (2021), 683-99. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07036337.2020.1803854