Dr Camila Vergara
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Email
camila.vergara@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873843
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Location
EBS.3.14, Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
Dr. Camila Vergara is a critical legal theorist, historian, and journalist from Chile writing on the relation between inequality and the law, and the possible institutional solutions to systemic corruption. She is Editor of Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, Associate Editor of Critical Sociology, and organiser of the the Venice Multidisciplinary World Conference on Republics and Republicanism. She is the author of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic (Princeton University Press 2020), and her work on constitutional theory, republicanism, corruption, and populism has been featured in leading international journals such as the Journal of Political Philosophy, History of Political Thought, and REVUS: Journal for Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of Law. She is also a global public intellectual —with her articles and interviews featured in outlets such as New Left Review, Jacobin, Politico, Revista Plebeya, and Il Manifesto Inret— and an activist advising and collaborating with grassroots organisations on rights, deliberative democracy, and community-based forms of governance.
Qualifications
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PhD in Political Theory Columbia University, (2019)
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MA in Politics New School, (2012)
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MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies New York University, (2008)
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BA in History Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, (2004)
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BA in Journalism & Media Studies Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, (2000)
Appointments
University of Essex
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Engagement and Impact Officer, Essex Business School (1/9/2023 - present)
Research and professional activities
Conferences and presentations
Public Lecture on ‘Anti-Oligarchic Constitutionalism’
Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, University of Liverpool Public Law Unit, 5/12/2024
Keynote Speech, 5th Annual Conference SAFI Interdisciplinary Network for Women in Legal Academia
Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, University of Glasgow, 10/9/2024
Keynote speaker on 'Eco-Legality'
Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Lake Como Summer School in Critical Theory of Society, 7/9/2024
Keynote ‘Plebeian Populism: Extraordinary Politics in the Time of Oligarchy’
Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, University of Sussex, 6/3/2024
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Cooperative Management and Marketing � Capstone Module (BE940)
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Student Success Tutorial (BE917)
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Social Economy Management: Theories and Perspectives (BE495)
Publications
Publications (1)
Vergara, C., (2020). Machiavelli’s Plebeian Constituent Power
Journal articles (11)
Vergara, C., (2022). Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century. By Hélène Landemore. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2020. 272p. $35.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.. Perspectives on Politics. 20 (3), 1059-1061
Vergara, C., (2022). REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTIONAL THOUGHT: ELITIST AND PLEBEIAN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MIXED CONSTITUTION. History of Political Thought. 43 (5), 28-55
Vergara, C., (2022). Response to Hélène Landemore’s Review of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic. Perspectives on Politics. 20 (3), 1064-1064
Vergara, C., (2022). Towards material anti-oligarchic constitutionalism. Revus. 46 (46)
Biale, E., Stein, M., Vergara, C., McKean, B. and Azmanova, A., (2022). Regaining control over precarity. Contemporary Political Theory. 21 (4), 640-666
Vergara, C., (2021). Corruption as systemic political decay. Philosophy & Social Criticism. 47 (3), 322-346
Vergara, C., (2021). On the limits of elitist theories of constituent power. Etica e Politica/Ethics and Politics. 23 (3), 283-291
Vergara, C., (2020). Populism as Plebeian Politics: Inequality, Domination, and Popular Empowerment. Journal of Political Philosophy. 28 (2), 222-246
Vergara, C., (2020). John P. McCormick, Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist Politics. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018)Gabriele Pedullà, Machiavelli in Tumult: The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Constellations. 27 (2), 316-320
Ducange, J-N., Vergara, C., Ahmed, T. and Høgsbjerg, C., (2020). Book Reviews. Theoria. 67 (163), 106-118
Vergara, C., (2020). The plebeian people of populism. Revue européenne des sciences sociales. 58 (58-2), 77-96
Books (2)
Vergara, C., (2020). Systemic Corruption Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic. Princeton University Press. 0691211566. 9780691211565
Vergara, C., (2020). República plebeya guía práctica para constituir el poder popular. 9568681574. 9789568681579
Book chapters (9)
Vergara, C., (2024). Lenin, the (un)making of a critical legal theorist. In: LENIN: The Heritage We (Don’t) Renounce. Editors: Joffre-Eichhorn, HJ. and Anderson, P., . Daraja Press. 9781998309047
Vergara, C., (2023). From Chile to New York City: Systemic Corruption and Oligarchic Domination. In: Talking About Global Inequality Personal Experiences and Historical Perspectives. Springer Nature. 139- 145. 3031080424. 9783031080425
Vergara, C., (2023). Introduction to the Anniversary Edition: Legalism and Its Dead Ends. In: Conversations with Allende Socialism in Chile. Verso Books. 1804293334. 9781804293331
Vergara, C., (2023). Lenin and the Materialist Critique of Labor Law. In: The Future of Lenin: Power, Politics, and Revolution in the Twenty-First Century. 1438488068. 9781438488066
Vergara, C., (2022). Democracy to Avert Ecocide. In: How Democracy Survives Global Challenges in the Anthropocene. Editors: Deese, S. and Holm, M., . Routledge. 212- 228. 9781000812893
Vergara, C., (2021). Machiavelli's Republican Constituent Power. In: Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: New Readings. BRILL. 9004442073. 9789004442078
Vergara, C., (2021). Political Action, Revolutionary Parties and the Transition to a Republic of Councils. In: Rosa Luxemburg Band 2: Nachwirken. 3963172452. 9783963172458
Vergara, C., (2020). Populism: Plebeian Power against Oligarchy. In: Constituent Power Law, Popular Rule and Politics. Edinburgh University Press. 1474454992. 9781474454995
Vergara, C., (2020). Crisis Government: The Populist as Plebeian Dictator. In: Mapping Populism: Approaches and Methods. Routledge. 100004338X. 9781000043389
Grants and funding
2024
Decolonizing International aid through re-imagining structures of partnerships between NGOs in Global South and Global North
University of Essex (Research England - ODA)
