Murilo Gaspardo is a Brazilian legal scholar and Associate Professor of State Theory and Political Science at the Department of Public Law within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FCHS) at São Paulo State University (UNESP), Franca campus. He completed his undergraduate law degree, Master’s, and Ph.D. in State Law at the University of São Paulo (USP) Faculty of Law, followed by his Habilitation (Livre-docência) in State Theory from UNESP. He also conducted post-doctoral research at Durham University in the United Kingdom with a FAPESP fellowship.
He has an extensive institutional leadership background, having served as Director (2018–2022) and Vice-Director (2022–2026) of FCHS at UNESP. His academic research and teaching focus on state theory, democratic decline, global governance, and the democratic control of public policies.
He currently coordinates a major FAPESP-funded thematic research project investigating the crisis of democracy and institutional legal arrangements. In addition to his formal academic work, he is a public commentator on constitutional resilience, academic freedom, and democratic safeguarding in contemporary Brazil, contributing analytical essays to outlets such as Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil. His scholarship critically evaluates how institutional design and public administration can defend constitutional frameworks against authoritarian erosion.