Role
Full Professor of Political Theory at Columbia University in New York, Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory.
Bio
Nadia Urbinati is a full professor of Political Theory at Columbia University in New York, where she holds the Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Bologna and a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence. She has taught at numerous universities, including New York University, Sciences Po in Paris, and Bocconi University, and is a permanent visiting professor at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa.
Her research interests include modern and contemporary political thought, with a particular focus on liberalism, socialism, the theory of representation and sovereignty, and populism . She has contributed to the revival of studies on political representation in democratic theory and has developed a reading of populism in power as a form of democracy based on the direct representation of the leader. She is the author of numerous volumes, including Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2019); among her most recent works , L'ipocrisia virtuosa (2023); Democrazia afascista , co-authored with Gabriele Pedullà (2024), and The Lottocratic Mentality: Defending Democracy Against Lottocracy with Cristina Lafont (2025).
Her awards include the David and Elaine Spitz Prize, the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, the title of Commander of the Italian Republic (2008), the Capalbio Prize for Political Nonfiction (2020), and the Senera Medal of the British Academy (2025). She has been a member of the Lincei Academy since 2024.