Catherine Reyes-Housholder, PhD

Assistant Professor, Instituto de Ciencia Política
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

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Chile's first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, leads her final 2013 presidential campaign event.
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Brazil's first woman president, Dilma Rousseff, inaugurates a Casa da Mulher Brasileira in Brasília in June 2015.

    Contact me!
Welcome to my web site! I am an Assistant Professor at the Instituto de Ciencia Política of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. I also am an Associate Researcher at the multi-disciplinary Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). I earned my PhD in Government from Cornell University in 2017.
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​I research the presidency and gender with a geographical focus on Latin America. My current projects examine the causes of women presidents: How do women win the presidency? When and why do parties sometimes nominate women instead of men for president? What traits do citizens stereotypically associate with women and men presidential candidates, and which of these traits do they value in presidents? 

Another line of my published scholarship focuses on the consequences of women presidents. When and why do women presidents name more woman ministers than men presidents? Why do women presidents have lower approval ratings than men presidents? How do citizens respond to women in executive office?

Fondecyt de Iniciación Grant #11220371 "How Women Win the Presidency" (2022-25) is presently financing my scholarly work. I am writing a book on how women triumph in presidential elections in Latin America. 

My research has been published in Comparative Politics (twice), ​Politics & Gender, Electoral Studies, ​Political Research Quarterly, Latin American Politics and Society, Politics, Groups and Identities, the ​Journal of Politics in Latin America, Revista de Ciencia Política as well as in four edited volumes. (You can read these articles and chapters in the "Research" section of this web site.) My dissertation "Presidentas, Power and Pro-Women Change" won the 2017 Best Dissertation Award: APSA Women and Politics section.

I conducted fieldwork in Brazil and Chile in 2015 thanks to a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. I also conducted research in Uruguay as a Fulbright undergraduate fellow in 2008.

I wrote an essay for the American Political Science Association's Comparative Politics newsletter on gender inequalities and presidential power worldwide. Check it out:
https://www.comparativepoliticsnewsletter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021_spring.pdf