PhD from the University of Sussex, is a professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco, a columnist for the Folha de São Paulo, and a consultant to national and international organizations. He is a member of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He was a Fulbright Scholar at MIT, Visiting Professor at Yale University, and Resident Fellow at Rockefeller Center-Bellagio. His latest book (co-authored) is Brazil in Transition: beliefs, leadership and institutional change, Princeton University Press, 2017.