Lecture by Dr Marc F. PLATTNER: "Europe’s Democratic Odyssey"

On 26 April 2012, Dr Marc F. PLATTNER, gave a lecture at Natolin as part of the EP Geremek European Civilization Chair lecture series. The lecture was entitled "Europe’s Democratic Odyssey".

Dr Marc F. PLATTNER is Vice-President for Research and Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, based in Washington D.C., and Co-Editor of the Journal of Democracy, a quarterly publication that addresses the problems and prospects of democracy around the world. He served as NED’s Director of Program from 1984 to 1989. During the academic year 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy and in early 2011, he was a Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. He has previously been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 1983–1984; Advisor on Economic and Social Affairs at the United States Mission to the United Nations, 1981–1983; Program Officer at the Century Foundation (formerly the Twentieth Century Fund), a private foundation in New York City, 1975–1981; and Managing Editor of The Public Interest, a quarterly journal on public policy, 1971–75. Dr PLATTNER graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and received his Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, where his principal area of study was political philosophy.

Publications in English include:

• Democracy Without Borders? Global Challenges to Liberal Democracy, 2008; and Rousseau’s State of Nature, 1979;
• Human Rights in Our Time, 1984, editor;
• Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy, 2012; Debates on Democratization, 2010, co-editor;
• Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, 2010; Democracy: A Reader, 2009; co-editor;
• How People View Democracy, 2008; Latin America’s Struggle for Democracy, 2008, co-editor;
• The State of India’s Democracy, 2007, co-editor;
• Electoral Systems and Democracy, 2006; World Religions and Democracy, 2005, co-editor;
• Islam and Democracy in the Middle East, 2003, co-editor;
• Democracy After Communism, 2002, co-editor;
• The Global Divergence of Democracies, 2001; Globalization, Power, and Democracy, 2000, co-editor;
• The Liberal Tradition in Focus: Problems and New Perspectives, 2000, co-editor;
• The Democratic Invention, 2000, co-editor;
• Democratization in Africa, 1999, co-editor.