Diego Sazo | Political Scientist

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I am a political scientist and Chief of Research in International Relations at AthenaLab, a Chilean think tank focused on international relations, defence, and security. I received my PhD from the Department of Government at the London School of Economics (LSE) and completed my undergraduate studies at the Universidad Católica de Chile.

Previously, I worked as a policy adviser at Chile’s Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and the Ministry of National Defence. I have served as an Adjunct Professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile, Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies, and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.

My research and teaching interests lie in political violence, conflict processes, political crises, and comparative politics. I have published two books and my academic work has been published in journals such as Government and Opposition, Sustainability, SAIS Review of International Affairs, and Revista de Ciencia Política.

My research has been supported by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development and the Sir Patrick Gillam Scholarship Fund.

In 2017, I was named one of Chile’s 100 Young Leaders by El Mercurio in recognition of my work fostering long-term collabouration between public and private institutions.

Research

My research examines the causes and dynamics of political violence, with a regional focus on Latin America. I am particularly interested in urban disorder, rioting, organised crime and how states respond to severe political crises.

My book project is based on my PhD thesis. The Violent Disconnection: The Logic of Protest Violence in Contemporary Latin America, draws on fieldwork in Argentina, Chile, and Colombia to develop a comparative theory of intensity of protest violence.

Book project

The Violent Disconnection: The Logic of Protest Violence in Contemporary Latin America +

Develops a novel theoretical framework to explain variation in the intensity of protest violence in low-middle quality democracies
Argues that the deterioration of state-citizen relations — through weak intermediary organisations and faded memories of state violence — drives the escalation of protests into transgressive violence
Offers a comparative analysis of Argentina, Chile and Colombia, drawing on 63 in-depth interviews and extensive fieldwork across three countries
Challenges deterministic accounts of political violence by proposing a nuanced, interactional framework grounded in process-tracing methodology

Why do some anti-government protests turn more violent than others? In contemporary Latin America, mass mobilisations have become a defining feature of political life, yet only a few have escalated into highly destructive, prolonged, and nationwide street violence. The Violent Disconnection addresses this puzzle through a comparative study of protest in Argentina, Chile and Colombia between 2017 and 2020.

The book argues that the intensity of protest violence is shaped by the degree of deterioration in state-citizen relations, operating through two key mechanisms: the strength of intermediary organisations — political parties, unions, and social movements — and the endurance of collective memories of state violence. Each mechanism operates differently once the state responds antagonistically to protest. Where intermediaries remain strong, they channel grievances and prevent radical factions from gaining traction. Where memories of past repression are vivid, both authorities and protesters recognise the costs of escalation. The interplay of these two factors produces three distinct patterns: restrained, disruptive, and transgressive violence.

Drawing on historical research, cross-national surveys, protest art, video footage, political cartoons, and 63 in-depth interviews conducted during fieldwork in three countries, the book advances the literature on contentious politics by building a novel theory of protest violence, challenging prevailing deterministic socioeconomic frameworks, and offering fresh comparative empirical data from the Global South.

Part I. Puzzle, theoretical explanations and research design

1. Introduction

2. Explaining Variation in Protest Violence from a Comparative Perspective

3. Research Design and Methods

Part II. Case studies

4. The Upheaval that Didn't Happen: The 2017 Anti-Pension Reform in Argentina

5. Violent Protests in the Post-peace Agreement: The 2019 National Strike in Colombia

6. From Civil Resistance to Violent Uprising: The Chilean Protests of October 2019

Part III. Theoretical balance and next steps

7. Conclusions

Research experience

Millennium Institute for Research on Violence and Democracy Research Assistant Data survey on organised crime, urban violence and political radicalisation in Latin America, 2019–2021 events.	Santiago, CL 2022–2025
CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences Research Assistant Construction and analysis of indicators on types of governmental response to Covid-19 in Brazil and Mexico.	London, GBR 2022–2024
Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data Research Assistant Compilation, integration and interpretation of public data on environmental sacrifice zones in Chile (2006–2018).	Santiago, CL 2019–2021

Publications

How Populists Governed the COVID-19 Pandemic: Populist Governance and Social Policies in Brazil, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Turkey

Panizza, F., Szikra, D., Öktem, K., & Sazo, D.

Government and Opposition, 60(4): 1–23, 2025

DOI →

Chile 2022: From Great Expectations to Rising Pessimism

Sazo, D.

Revista de Ciencia Política, 43(2): 193–222, 2023

DOI →

Delayed and Approved: A Quantitative Study of Conflicts and the Environmental Impact Assessments of Energy Projects in Chile, 2012–2017

Huneeus, S., Luna, J., Toro, S., & Sazo, D.

Sustainability, 13(6989): 1–13, 2021

DOI →

Scapegoats of the 2019 Chilean Riots: From Foreign Intervention to Riff-Raff Involvement

Dammert, L., & Sazo, D.

SAIS Review of International Affairs, 40(2): 121–135, 2020

DOI →

Movilización y resistencia verde: Los conflictos socioambientales en Chile, 2000–2013

Hernández, C., & Sazo, D.

Revista de Gestión Pública, 4(2): 217–251, 2015

DOI →

Provocando el desequilibrio de poder: Crítica a la política exterior de George W. Bush desde la realpolitik

Sazo, D.

Revista Enfoques: Ciencia Política y Administración Pública, 7(10): 293–311, 2009

DOI →

Democracia y poder constituyente

Sazo, D. & Bustamante, G. (eds.)

Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2016 · 406 pp.

To discuss the constitution is to ask what kind of country we want. In our times, this concern is channelled through discontented citizens mobilising in the streets, united by a common challenge: to question structures of domination and legitimation, and to demand a revision of how power is exercised. Where does sovereignty reside in today's democracies? Are we witnessing an incipient constituent process at both global and local levels? The aim of this volume is to set out the contemporary debates and provide the conceptual and analytical tools needed to understand the forces driving change, in light of events in Chile and across the world.

La Revolución de Maquiavelo. El Príncipe 500 años después

Sazo, D. (ed.)

RIL Editores, 2013 · 328 pp.

The struggle to interpret Machiavelli remains as alive as ever. As Isaiah Berlin once observed, there are at least twenty divergent readings of his thought — a number that continues to grow as we mark five centuries since his most celebrated work. Some regard him as a political scientist, others as a champion of republicanism, some as a defender of the people, or simply as a contemptible adviser to tyrants. The greatest source of controversy is The Prince, the short treatise he composed in the bitterness of his exile (1513), which unleashed a visceral critique that endures to this day. What is the significance of The Prince? What explains its place among the most widely read works in the history of political thought? In its pages, Machiavelli swam against the current: he freed politics from traditional metaphysics and prefigured what we now call the sovereign, secular state. In doing so, he opened the doors of political modernity. His method, too, was revolutionary — an original return to the classics that recast the concepts of liberty, republic, virtue and fortune.

The Causes and Consequences of the ‘Estallido Social’ in Chile Forthcoming

Dammert, L., & Sazo, D.

In The Oxford Handbook of Urban Violence, ed. K. Mitton, A. Varsori & Z. Waseem. Oxford University Press.

This chapter examines the causes and consequences of the 2019 estallido social in Chile, the most intense and disruptive wave of urban protest in the nation’s recent democratic history. Triggered by a modest public transport fare hike, the protests quickly escalated into a nationwide movement marked by unprecedented levels of urban violence, widespread material damage, and sustained collective mobilization. Drawing on empirical evidence, the chapter traces how structural inequality, relative deprivation, and a longstanding crisis of political representation set the stage for the uprising, while the erosion of socio-political intermediaries and the emergence of critical, digitally connected citizenship shaped its dynamics and scope. The chapter examines the extraordinary scale, geographical spread, and duration of violence, situating these events within broader debates on contentious politics and democratic crisis. It further analyses the far-reaching political, social, and economic consequences of the protests, including constitutional reform, shifts in public trust, and the redefinition of civic participation. By integrating process-tracing and comparative insights, the chapter argues that the estallido social fundamentally challenged Chile’s model of stability, offering lessons for understanding the interplay between urban protest, state response, and democratic transformation in the Global South.

Populist Governance and Populism’s Host Ideology in the Fight Against COVID-19: The Cases of Brazil and Mexico Under review

Panizza, F., & Sazo, D.

Journal of Political Ideologies

The question of how to assess the impact of populism on policy decisions, how to distinguish it from that of its so-called host ideology, and how different ideological leanings and contextual factors impact on policy decisions is far from linear. To determine how this relationship unfolds, we undertake a comparative study of presidents Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico’s health policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We address the following questions: 1) What was ‘populist’ in the (populist) governments’ management of the pandemic? 2) How can we distinguish the populist form from its ideological substance? and 3) What explains policy differences in the management of the pandemic? We contend that the ‘populist’ aspect of the governments’ response to the crisis involved the governance process, while the host ideology shaped the way ‘the people’ were discursively constructed and, consequently, impacted the policies being implemented.

Framing the Latin American Riots: A Comparative Analysis of Ideological Convergence in Governmental Responses Under review

Sazo, D. & Quezada, G.

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

Existing research on violent protests in Global North democracies shows that right-wing governments often attribute such unrest to non-structural or group-based causes. By blaming foreign actors or marginalized groups—such as immigrants or youth—leaders can deflect institutional accountability and legitimize repressive responses. Yet, we know far less about how similar dynamics operate in Global South democracies, or how government ideology shapes these narratives. This study addresses that gap through a comparative thematic analysis of 1,500 official tweets issued during major protests in Bolivia (left-wing government), Colombia (right-wing government), and Ecuador (centrist government) between October and December 2019. Despite ideological differences, we find a striking convergence in how governments framed the unrest across four dimensions: (1) problem definition, (2) causal attribution, (3) moral evaluation, and (4) treatment recommendation. Authorities commonly cast the protests as a struggle between democratic order and chaos, attributed blame to foreign regimes aligned with domestic opposition, delegitimized violence as criminal dissent, and endorsed strong repressive measures. Our findings advance the literature by demonstrating that ideological orientation does not necessarily determine protest framing. Instead, governments across the spectrum may deploy similar discursive strategies to justify coercion and shape public perception, deepening political polarization and confrontation.

Democracy in Hard Places. By Scott Mainwaring and Tarek Masoud. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 311 pp.

Sazo, D.

The Journal of Development Studies, 61(8): 1357–1359, 2025

DOI →

Teaching

I have taught courses on political processes, political crises, international relations and political theory.

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) Adjunct Professor, Institute of Political Science	Santiago, CL
ICP5710: Contemporary Political Crises (master's)	2019, 2025
ICP0106: Political Organisation of Chile (undergraduate)	2018–2019
Harvard University (Santiago campus) Visiting Lecturer, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies	Santiago, CL
Chilean Politics (undergraduate exchange programme)	2018–2019
Adolfo Ibáñez University (UAI) Adjunct Professor, School of Government	Santiago, CL
GOB101: Political Thought (undergraduate)	2018
LITR101: Critical Reading (undergraduate)	2014

As an undergraduate, I served as a teaching assistant for the courses Introduction to Political Theory (2007, 2009), Political Development of Central and Eastern Europe (2008), History of Europe in the 20th Century (2007–2009) and External Relations of the European Union (2010).

Media

I regularly provide commentary on security, conflict, and global affairs in Chilean and international media, including television, radio, and print outlets.

CNN Chile · Conexión Global

$Mega Plus$

Mega Plus · Mundo Plus

Radio Duna 89.7 · Terapia Chilensis

La Segunda · July 2024

Public Engagement

Beyond my professional work, academic research, and teaching, I engage in various forms of public outreach. I regularly write short pieces for newspapers, magazines, and online outlets, and occasionally interview leading scholars on their areas of expertise.