Sofia Donoso Knaudt

Sofia Donoso is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Universidad de Chile, and a researcher at the Centre of Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES), both in Chile. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the Universidad de Chile and an M.Phil. and D.Phil. in Development Studies from the University of Oxford. Dr Donoso’s research focuses on social movements in Chile, comparative perspectives on participation in street demonstrations, and the institutionalization of social protests. She is the co-editor of Social Movements in Chile: Organization, Trajectories, and Political Consequences (Palgrave McMillan, 2017) and has written extensively on the student movement in Chile. Her most recent project looks at the challenges faced by movement-parties in action.

Research interests

Social movements, institutionalization of social protest, movement-parties and their practices.

Visiting projects and objectives

Title of the project: Movement-parties in action: The case of the Chilean Frente Amplio in comparative perspective.

Her project examines the challenges faced by movement-parties, that is, political parties that emerge from processes of social mobilization. Specifically, she’s interested in examining three dimensions of movement-parties in action. First, the mechanisms that movement-parties implement to maintain and deepen the relationship with the social movements they seek to represent. Second, the mechanisms of convergence and internal democracy that movement-parties adopt considering their usual origin in multiple political organizations. Third, the relationship that movement-parties develop with the traditional political parties of their political sector and the mechanisms of differentiation (symbolic / discursive and in terms of voting in Parliament) that they adopt. She analyses these challenges in the case of the Frente Amplio in Chile, a recently created movement-party with a remarkable electoral success.

While the literature on movement-parties is quite recent – and more so the literature on the challenges faced by movement-parties in action – there is an extensive scholarship on how far right parties mobilize their bases and on their relationship with mainstream parties.

To know more

Contact: sofia.donoso@umayor.cl; sofiadonoso@gmail.com
Link to personal webpage