Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Vladimir Tismaneanu Joins FPRI’s Board of Advisors

Vladimir Tismaneanu Joins FPRI’s Board of Advisors

  • October 18, 2017

Vladimir Tismaneanu Joins FPRI’s Board of Advisors

  • October 18, 2017

The Foreign Policy Research Institute is pleased to announce that Vladimir Tismaneanu has joined its Board of Advisors.

Dr. Tismaneanu, who got his start at FPRI, is a professor of comparative politics and director of the Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies at the University of Maryland–College Park. Between 1998 and 2004, he served as the editor of East European Politics and Societies. In 2006, he chaired the Romanian Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. In 2008-2009, he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His research areas include comparative politics, political ideologies, revolutions, as well as the contemporary politics of Central and Eastern Europe. Dr. Tismaneanu is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy.

He is the author of numerous books, including Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and in Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton University Press, 2009), and The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century (University of California Press, 2013). His new book, co-authored with Romanian political scientist Marius Stan, deals with Romania confronting its Communist past, will come out from Cambridge University Press in 2018.

A native of Romania, Dr.Tismaneanu arrived in the United States by way of Caracas in 1982. He lived first in Philadelphia, where he joined FPRI shortly upon his arrival. He worked as a fellow and served as one of three editors of Agora (1989-1993), FPRI’s Romanian-language journal featuring essays by Romanian dissidents. In 1987, he directed a truly historic and prescient conference on “Will the Communist Regimes Survive?” featuring remarks by 36 dissidents and exiles from 12 Communist states.   While living in Philadelphia, he became a citizen of the United States, keynoting his own naturalization ceremony.

His latest FPRI essay explores the meaning of the recent German elections .

“It is an honor to have Vladimir rejoin FPRI,” said FPRI president Alan Luxenberg.  “He is a towering intellect and a passionate voice for the spread of liberty.”