Dr. Ruzha Smilova is a program director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies and an assistant professor at the Political Science Department of Sofia University, where she teaches the history of political ideas and contemporary political philosophy. Her academic research is focused on such issues as the authority of democracy, normative and positive theories of democracy, and the relation of media and democracy. At the CLS she is involved in research and policy-related projects on voting behavior, participation in politics, quality of representative institutions, among others.
Dr. Smilova holds a doctorate from the Central European University in Budapest. Her dissertation “A reason-based justification for liberal-democratic authority” received a CEU university award in 2006.