Collegiate Affiliation

Lisa Hilbink received her Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego in 1999. Her research and teaching centers on the judicial role in democracy and democratization, with a particular focus on Latin America and Latin Europe. She is a two-time Fulbright grantee to Chile and Spain, and before joining the faculty at Minnesota, was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows and lecturer in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Professor Hilbink is the author of the award-winning book, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile (Cambridge University Press, 2007). She published an expanded version of that book in Spanish with FLACSO-Mexico in 2014. Hilbink is also co-editor of and contributor to an inter-disciplinary volume (with Ofelia Ferrán) entitled Legacies of Mass Violence in Contemporary Spain, as well as co-editor of the December 2009 symposium in Political Research Quarterly on the comparative sources of judicial empowerment, both of which feature her comparative contributions on Spain and Chile. Professor Hilbink is currently finishing a book on Judges for Democracy organizations in Latin Europe and Latin America.

Professor Hilbink is also part of the Graduate Faculty in Human Rights, and, since 2017, has been leading a research project, funded by the University of Minnesota's Human Rights Initiative and Human Rights Lab, on access to justice in Latin America.

Educational Background & Specialties
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Educational Background

  • B.A.: International Relations, University of Wisconsin, 1988 - none
  • M.A.: Political Science, University of California, 1994 - none
  • Ph.D.: Political Science, University of California, 1999 - none

Specialties

  • Comparative judicial politics
  • Comparative constitutionalism
  • Latin American and Iberian politics
  • Democratization