Professor Jan Zielonka

Professor of European Politics

Jan Zielonka is Professor of European Politics at the Univeristy of Oxford, Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony's College and the Principal Investigator of the ESRC funded project Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. He studied Law at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and Political Science at the University of Warsaw where he received his Ph.D. in 1981. In 1982 he settled in the Netherlands, first at the University of Groningen and then, as from 1984, at the University of Leiden. In January 1996 he was appointed Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence (Joint Chair in European Studies at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Department of Political and Social Sciences). He took up his present position at the University of Oxford in January 2004.

He has published numerous works in the field of comparative politics (Soviet and Eastern European studies), the history of political ideas, international relations, human rights and security. His current research deals with the evolving nature of the European Union and the process of the EU's eastward enlargement. His books include Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union, (Oxford University Press, 2006), Europe Unbound: Enlarging and Reshaping the Boundaries of the European Union, (Routledge 2002), Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe, vol. 1 & 2 (Oxford University Press, 2001), Explaining Euro-paralysis. Why Europe is Unable to Act in International Politics (Macmillan, 1998), and Political Ideas in Contemporary Poland (Avebury 1989).