Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government, Harvard University
Director, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Profile
Work
Grzegorz Ekiert is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University, Director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES), and Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. At CES, he co-chairs the Seminar on Democracy – Past, Present, Future.
Ekiert's research and teaching interests focus on comparative politics, regime change and democratization, civil society and social movements and East European politics and societies. His books include: Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements, co-editors Elizabeth J. Perry and Yan Xiaojun, (Cambridge University Press, 2020); Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule, co-editor Stephen Hanson, (Cambridge University Press 2003); Rebellious Civil Society. Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, co-authored with Jan Kubik, (University of Michigan Press 1999); The State Against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe, (Princeton University Press 1996). His papers have been published in numerous social science journals and edited volumes in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Selected Publications
“Civil Society as a Threat to Democracy: The Case of Poland,” Open Forum Series, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University (2020).
“Civil Society Approach,” in Handbook of Political, Social, and Economic Transformations, edited by Wolfgang Merkel, Raj Kollmorgen and Hans-Jürgen Wagener, Oxford University Press 2019, pp. 151-160.
“Civil Society and Three Dimensions of Inequality in Post-1989 Poland” (co-authors Jan Kubik and Michal Wenzel) Comparative Politics, Special Issue on Civil Society in an Era of Inequality, (April 2017) Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 331-350.
“Three Generations of Research on Post-Communist Politics – A Sketch,” in: East European Politics and Societies (May 2015) Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 323-337.
“Myths and Realities of Civil Society,” (co-author Jan Kubik) Journal of Democracy (January 2014) Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 46-58.
“Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe 100 years On,” (co-author Daniel Ziblatt) in: East European Politics and Societies (February 2013) Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 88-105.
“The End of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe: The Last Middle Class Revolution?” in: Political Power and Social Theory (2010) Vol. 21, pp. 99-123.
“Dilemmas of Europeanization: Eastern and Central Europe after the EU Enlargement," Acta Slavica Iaponica (2008) Vol. 25, pp. 1-28.
“Democracy in Postcommunist World: An Unending Quest,” (co-authors Jan Kubik and Milada Anna Vachudova), East European Politics and Societies (2007) Vol. 21, No 1, pp. 1-24.
Other Affiliations
Senior Scholar, Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies
Member of the Advisory Board, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)
Member of the Advisory Committee, Club of Madrid, Spain
Founding Member of Concilium Civitas, Collegium Civitas
Faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Davis Center for Russian and Euroasian Studies, the Ukrainian Research Institute, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
Recent Lecture: "Civil Society & Democracy: A Reconsideration"
