Mark R. Beissinger (b. November 28, 1954, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

) is an American

political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...

. He is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Politics at Princeton University.

Early life

Beissinger received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1976 and his doctorate in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1982.

Career

He taught at Harvard from 1982 until 1987, and at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

,Staff (March 1997) "People in Political Science" ''PS: Political Science and Politics'' 30(1): pp. 81-95, page 81 from 1988 until 2006. He served as chair of the UW-Madison Political Science Department from 2001 to 2004 and was the founding director of Wisconsin'
Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia
Since 2006 he has taught at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

as a full professor. He served as director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. In 2007 he was president of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (AAASS). His work has been supported by fellowships and grants from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Wissenshaftskolleg zu Berlin, the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washi ...

, the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

, and the John M. Olin Foundation.

Works

He is author of the books ''The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion'' (2022), ''Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State'' (2002), and ''Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power'' (1988), and co-edited ''The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society'' (1990, with Lubomyr Hajda), ''Beyond State Crisis? Post-Colonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia Compared'' (2002, with M. Crawford Young), and ''Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe'' (2014, with Stephen Kotkin).

Recognition

* 2023 Luebbert Best Book Award for the best book published in the field of comparative politics over the previous two years, presented by the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association. * 2017

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. * 2003 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs * 2003 Mattei Dogan Award presented by the Society for Comparative Research for the best book published in the field of comparative research * Award for Best Book on European Politics presented by the Organized Section on European Politics and Society of the American Political Science Association.

References

External links

Academic homepage
1954 births Living people Writers from Philadelphia Writers about the Soviet Union Duke University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Harvard University faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Princeton University faculty {{US-polisci-bio-stub