Grzegorz Ekiert is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University, director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and senior scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. His research and teaching interests focus on comparative politics, regime change and democratization, civil society and social movements and East European politics and societies.
His current projects explore civil society development in new democracies in Central Europe and East Asia, state mobilized contention in authoritarian and hybrid regimes and patterns of political and economic transformations in the post-communist world. He is the author or editor of six books, edited volumes and special issues of journals. His papers appeared in numerous social science journals in the US, Europe and Asia and in many edited volumes. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, an external examiner in Politics, Public Administration and Global Studies at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the Club of Madrid Advisory Committee.
Recently, CES Director Grzegorz Ekiert gave a lecture, entitled "Civil Society & Democracy – A Reconsideration," to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the election of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first non-Communist prime minister.
“Hungary and Poland can no longer be considered liberal democracies. In both countries, the authoritarian institutional system has been established, giving largely unrestricted political power to the ruling party. While they are still not dictatorships, the potential for authoritarian rule increases considerably with every new legislation expanding the power of the government.”
