I am a final-year DPhil candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford. My research interests lie in the areas of Political Economy and Comparative Politics.

My doctoral project uses a top-down rational choice approach to determine how legacies of autocratic regimes shape extremism after transitions to democracy. I am also broadly interested in the economic legacies of autocracies, the effects of inequality and redistribution, post-transitional party formation, European politics, and electoral behaviour. Methodologically, I am interested in quantitative methods, text analysis, and quasi-experimental designs.

I am the recipient of a Full Scholarship granted by the FCT, the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology, with full funding until February 2022.

Before joining the University of Oxford I briefly worked in journalism and consultancy. I read for an MA in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies (Summa cum laude) at the Institute for Political Studies of the Catholic University of Portugal, with a full scholarship awarded by the Fundação Oriente. I hold a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics.

You can find here a copy of my CV. Get in touch with me at catarina.leao@politics.ox.ac.uk or on Twitter at @catarinalion.