Willibald Sonnleitner
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Willibald Sonnleitner is a Senior Research Professor at El Colegio de Mexico, where he teaches Political Science, Electoral Sociology and Methodology. He has been Visiting Professor at Sciences Po and at the Universities of Columbia, Chicago and Harvard. As an international expert in electoral management and institutional engineering, he has served on 21 electoral observation and assistance missions in Latin America. He was awarded Mexico’s National Award of Social Research and Public Opinion, and contributes regularly in the media. His current research focuses on the political representation of vulnerable minorities, on legislative quotas and affirmative action. He has widely published on elections and voting, political violence and ethnicity, electoral geography, polarization and (de-)democratization.
In September 2025, Willibald Sonnleitner joins the Paris IAS for a ten-month research stay.
Research topics
Elections, Voting, (De-)Democratization, Electoral Geography, Polarization, Political Violence, Ethnicity, Participation and Representation of Vulnerable Minorities, Legislative Quotas, Affirmative Action.
Disentangling the Puzzle of Minority Representation in Unequal Societies:
Comparative Perspectives on Affirmative Action and the Challenges for the political inclusion of vulnerable populations
In contrast to participation, political representation is a major puzzle of contemporary democracy. Over the past centuries, modern Nations successfully extended suffrage, making it nearly universal. Yet the ideal of popular representation remains a conundrum: What may be delegated to representatives, and how are they to be accountable to citizens? Is representation a matter of “being like”, or is it a way of “acting on behalf of” a constituency? How can the representation of vulnerable minorities be enhanced in highly unequal societies?
Mexico is particularly salient to study this major societal challenge. Here, legislative quotas gradually achieved gender parity, culminating with the election of 74 legislators who self-identify as indigenous, Afro-Mexican, migrants, disabled or sexually diverse persons, in 2024. But quotas are not a magic wand, and descriptive representation not necessarily ensures symbolic nor substantive representation. What barriers do minority candidates face, which types of quotas work better, and what are their downsides and costs? How do elected legislators act: as delegates, as trustees, or independently of their vulnerable constituents? What lessons can be learned from this fascinating case?
This comparative research seeks to disentangle the puzzles of minority representation, to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of quotas, to identify other affirmative actions and best practices, and to propose strategies to fuel a better informed, public debate.
Key publications
Willibald Sonnleitner, Margarita Moreno, Alejandro Vásquez, Victor Santillan, Edgars Martinez, Manuel Jonathan Soria. Estudio especializado sobre la efectividad en la aplicación de las acciones afirmativas y las barreras que enfrentan los grupos en situación de discriminación en la representación política en el proceso electoral federal 2020-2021, México, El Colegio de México/Instituto Nacional Electoral, 2022.
Available here: CGex202212-14-ip-22.pdf (ine.mx)
Willibald Sonnleitner. “Political Participation, Representation and Inclusion: Is There an Indigenous Vote in Mexico?”, Política y Gobierno, 28(2), 2020.
Available here: http://politicaygobierno.cide.edu/index.php/pyg/article/view/1331/1042.
Willibald Sonnleitner. La representación legislativa de los indígenas en México: De la representatividad descriptiva a una representación de mejor calidad [The Legislative Representation of indigenous People in Mexico: From descriptive representativity to a more substantive representation], México, Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación, 2013.
Available here: https://www.te.gob.mx/defensoria/media/pdf/32_representacion.pdf.
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