2023
Pablo Oñate
Universitat de València, Spain
(2023–2025)
Pablo Oñate is a Spanish political scientist who holds a law degree and a PhD in political science from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. His primary field of research is comparative politics: representation and parliamentary elites, electoral systems and electoral behaviour, populism and polarization.
Prof. Oñate is the author, editor, or co-author of 18 books and has published over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters in leading academic outlets. He has presented more than 150 papers at national and international conferences on topics related to his research interests.
He has held visiting researcher and professor positions at prestigious institutions such as Georgetown University and George Washington University (USA), the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), as well as multiple universities in Latin America, including the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, Universidad Veracruzana (Mexico), and Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno (Bolivia).
Prof. Oñate also worked extensively as an international consultant and election observer in numerous electoral processes across Latin America, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Myanmar. In Spain, he served as an institutional advisor for the Ministry of Education, the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA), the Andrés Bello Convention, and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). In 2024, he received Spain’s National Award in Sociology and Political Science in recognition of his academic, scientific, and professional contributions to the field. The award was presented to him by King Felipe VI, making him the third political scientist to receive this honor since its establishment in 2002.
He served as Secretary-General of the Spanish Political Science Association (2005–2013) and was twice elected President of the European Confederation of Political Science Associations (2014 and 2016).
Prof. Oñate has played a key role in IPSA over the years. He served as a member of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2012 IPSA World Congress in Madrid and was a member of the IPSA Executive Committee from 2018 to 2021. Elected President-Elect in 2021, he went on to serve as IPSA President from 2023 to 2025, and continues his involvement as Past President from 2025 to 2027.
During his presidency, Prof. Oñate introduced the IPSA Work-in-Progress Sessions (IPSA-WiPS), a new virtual conference format held in non-Congress years. These sessions feature panels dedicated to specific topics selected by the organizing IPSA Research Committees. The first IPSA-WiPS edition was successfully held from 4 to 6 December 2024.
He also led the commemoration of IPSA’s 75th Anniversary in 2024 through two major international conferences held in Montréal and Lisbon, each centered on timely themes: Changes and New Directions in Multi-Level Governance and Democratization and Autocratization, respectively.
Under his leadership, IPSA expanded its Summer School program to include new programs in Spain and Poznań (Poland), and further developed the Regional Dialogues initiative. These dialogues provide platforms for discussing shared challenges and exchanging best practices among scholars and institutions across regions.
As President, Prof. Oñate represented IPSA at numerous academic events around the world, many of which were hosted by IPSA’s Collective members (National Political Science Associations), where he delivered keynote speeches, chaired roundtables, and contributed to special sessions. His engagement further strengthened IPSA’s ties with political science communities in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and North America.
