Martha Sandoval holds a bachelor degree in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Monterrey in Mexico and a Master’s Degree in Political Theory from LSE, in London. She has been a collaborator from the Department of Social Sciences in the University of Monterrey since 2009.

She’s currently doing her PhD in Political Science at the University of Zurich and is member of the Doctoral Program in Democracy Studies from the NCCR Democracy in Zurich, which examines the key challenges to democracy. She is also member of the students´ network from the Swiss-Latin American Center. In her research project she is interested in understanding, to what extent institutions of direct democracy can help alleviate the deficiencies of representative democracy.

Taking into account Latin American cases that have started to implement institutions of direct democracy, she also analyzes the extent to which the normative commitments of democracy are achieved through the institutions of direct democracy.