Ana Tereza Fernandes is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Political Science of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, working in collaboration with the Eurac Research Institute for Comparative Federalism, Italy. She develops her research on territorial dynamics and democratic breakdown in Latin America, willing to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between federalism and democracy. She tackles the tensions and potentials of this relationship, keening to provide theoretical elements to strengthen federal democracies worldwide. She is interested in Second Chambers, Political Parties, Constitutional Courts, Political Ambition and Comparative Politics. She can be reached at anatrfernandes@gmail.com.