Pepe López Rey was a lecturer at the University of Extremadura, and a visiting lecturer at Columbia University. He was also a professor of Sociology at the University of A Coruña and a member of OSIM (Grupo de Investigación en Organizaciones Sociales, Instituciones y Mercados). His dissertation, “La percolación cultural del Tercer Sector por el mercado,” studied the competition between the institutional logics of the market and the Third Sector in the case of NGDOs in Spain. The Third Sector was a preferential subject of study; both in relation to the political and media spheres (From 0.7 to civil disobedience: Movement policy and information and Development NGOs (1994-2000); The Third Sector and the Market: Institutional conflicts in Spain; “NGOs, media and public visibility: La ciudadanía ante la mediatización de los mensajes sociales”, among others), as in the meso-sociological level and also in specific territorial areas such as Extremadura or Galicia (“A solidariedade internacional en Galicia;” “El Tercer Sector extremeño: un estudio descriptivo sobre su relación con las Nuevas Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación”).
Among his research lines were social movements and collective action (“Nunca Máis y la cara oculta de la esfera pública;” “Un movementogalego en Madrid: Nunca Máis e o seutratamentopola prensa estatal;” “Marcos e accións do movemento 15M en Galicia;” “Ciberdemocracia y cibercampapaña;” “Spain’s 2008 cyber-campaing”). He also participated in the World Values Survey (“Galicia en la sociedad de la información” and “Transformaciones recientes de la familia en Galicia”) and researched themes of leisure and youth (“El botellón. Glocalizando un conflicto postmoderno;” “Actores y percepción de las causas del botellón”). His last works were related to social capital (“Inequalities in the distribution of social capital in Spain,” among others).