Dr. Peter Stavrakis

Professor Stavrakis is currently Professor of Political Science at the National Defense University, and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1986, 1980), and his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Delaware (1978). Professor Stavrakis teaches courses in Political Science, National Security Decision-making, Russian Foreign and Domestic Politics, International Relations and Balkan politics. He is the author of Moscow and Greek Communism, 1944 - 1949, (Cornell, 1989), and editor of Beyond the Monolith: The Emergence of Regionalism in Post-Soviet Russia (Johns Hopkins, 1997), and is the author of numerous articles on post-Soviet politics, U.S. foreign assistance, democratization, and comparative politics. His article "The Evolution of Russia as a Predator State," (2002) appeared in the U.S. Congress's Joint Economic Committee study of the Russian economy, and is part of an ongoing comparative study of the political dynamics of post-imperial states. During the 1990s, Professor Stavrakis served as Deputy Director of The Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He has testified before the US Congress on numerous occasions, and served as an advisor for, among others, the US Congress, Department of State, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and various corporations and NGOs. Dr. Stavrakis authored or supervised the development of more than a dozen successful individual and institutional grants with a combined value of in excess of $3 million. In 2000 Stavrakis helped organize and create UVM United Academics, the faculty union at the University of Vermont, affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers. In 2001 he was subsequently elected and served as the first President of UVM United Academics. Stavrakis is of Russian and Greek descent, speaks Russian and Portuguese, and was born in Wilmington, Delaware.