Lorella Cedroni was a political thinker and a social scientist. She studied political science at the Sapienza University of Rome (1984) and philosophy at the University of Urbino (1991). She received her PhD title in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence (1999). She has taught and lectured mainly at the Sapienza University of Rome, but also in many other European and American universities. She was research fellow at Columbia University in New York (1992), at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (1992), and at St. John's College, Annapolis (1996–97). She was also visiting professor at the University of Adelaide (1996), at the University of Sydney (1996), at the University of Copenhagen (1997–98), at Complutense University of Madrid (2001), at the University of Jordan (2005), at the University of Southern Denmark (2006), at Marc Bloch Center of Berlin (2007), at the University of Athens (2008), at the Goethe University Frankfurt (2008), at Yildiz Technical University of Istanbul (2010), and at the University of Belgrade (2011). She worked as Fulbright distinguished professor of Political Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, PA, (2008), and as 'directeur d'études associé' (visiting professor) at the 'Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme' in Paris (2010). She has widely published in several research areas, including theory of democracy, political representation, gender studies, federalist theories, party systems in European countries, political language, electoral communication and human rights.