FORA.tv Speaker - Alfred C. Stepan

Alfred C. Stepan is Wallace Sayre Professor of Government and was Dean of SIPA (1983-91). Stepan's teaching and research interests include comparative politics, theories of democratic transitions, federalism, and the world's religious systems, and democracy. He has published Arguing Comparative Politics (Oxford 2001); Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, with J. J. Linz (Johns Hopkins 1996); Politics, Society, and Democracy: Comparative Studies, which he edited with H. E. Chebabi and J. J. Linz (Westview Press 1995); Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton 1988); The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile, which he edited with J. J. Linz (Johns Hopkins 1978); The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton 1978); and The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (Princeton 1974). Professor Stepan earned his BA from University of Notre Dame in 1958. He received a BA and an MA from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1963 and a PhD from Columbia University in 1969. Stepan was a professor of political science at Yale University (1976-82), Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia (1987-93), served as first rector and president at Central European University (Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw) (1993-96), and was Gladstone Professor of Government and fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University (1996-99). Stepan is also a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991-present) and a member of the British Academy (1997-present).