Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), he previously taught at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and the Universidad de Salamanca (USAL). He was a visiting professor at Yale University and a Fulbright postdoctoral researcher at New York University. He has directed the Carlos III - Juan March Institute of Social Sciences (2013-2021) and was director of research at its predecessor, the Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of the Juan March Institute (2008-2013).

He is the author of numerous books, scholars and essays. Among the former are The Historical Roots of Political Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Atado y mal atado. El suicidio institucional del franquismo y el surgimiento de la democracia (Alianza, 2014). Among his numerous essays, the most recent is El desorden político. Democracias sin intermediación (Catarata, 2022). His best known book is La desfachatez intelectual. Escritores e intelectuales ante la política (Catarata, 2016). He has published numerous research articles in international academic journals and regularly writes opinion columns in El País, La Vanguardia and Ctxt.