Christian W Haerpfer

During the 1980s my academic research focused upon Austrian politics in general and the study of the Austrian party system, as well as Austrian electoral behavior in particular. In this first decade of my career, main themes of my scholarly studies have been anti-Semitism, the development of the right-wing Freedom Party of Mr. Haider, the emergence of the Green Party in Austria and the impact of social structure upon voting for Conservative and social-democratic parties. In the 1980s, I served as public policy advisor to the Austrian Federal Government as well as Regional Governments regarding domestic and international conflicts as part of my duties as Deputy Director of the Institute for Conflict Research, which is a non-partisan think tank in the Austrian capital.The end of the Iron Curtain, and consequently that of Communism in Europe in 1989, changed the direction of my academic research, as well as my public policy agenda. The Iron Curtain fell in November 1989 at the border between Hungary and Austria and two months later I started the fieldwork for my first academic survey on post-Communist political and economic transformations in Bulgaria with 4,000 face-to-face interviews in January 1990. From 1990 onwards I developed the so-called New Democracies Barometer (NDB). This represents one of the most significant pieces of political science research carried out on a regular basis in Central and Eastern Europe and the area of the former Soviet Union and can be used as a tool for accurately charting the process of transition in a rapidly changing context, thus mapping the milestones on the road to democracy and market economy. I have been the Principal Investigator of this comparative research programme to analyze political, economic, and social change in 17 post-Communist countries. During the 1990s, I served as academic advisor in Central and Eastern European Affairs to the Austrian President Thomas Klestil, the Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, and the Austrian National Bank on the one hand and international organizations and bodies such as the World Bank (Washington), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD, London), the European Commission (DG Research and DG Employment and Social Affairs) on the other. Since 1999, I was academic advisor to the Russian Parliament, the Duma (Moscow), the Russian Federal Ministry of Social Affairs (Moscow), the Regional Government of Tomsk in Siberia, the Belorussian Ministry of Health (Minsk) and the Office of the President of Ukraine (Kiev) in matters of monitoring transformations, health policy, social policy, and administrative reforms. The ‘leitmotiv' of my career has always been to join the world of academic scholarship with the world of public policy. The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship will be another step to pursue this lifelong goal and I am confident that it will be fruitful for the Woodrow Wilson Center as well as for my own intellectual and personal development.

Education

Ph.D. (1980) Political Science, University of Vienna, Austria; M.Sc. (1981) Political Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK; Univ.-Doz. (2003) Habilitation in Political Science, University of Vienna, Austria

Experience

• Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vienna, 2003-present, and Director of the Center for Strategic Development at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, 1999-present
• Director of the Paul Lazarsfeld Society of Social Research, Vienna, Austria,1994-98
• Deputy Director of the Institute for Conflict Research, Vienna, Austria, 1986-93
• Lecturer in Political Science, University of Vienna, 1983-2002
• Fellowships and Visiting Professorships: Leverhulme Visiting Professor, School of Law and Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, United Kingdom (2003-04); Visiting Fellow, School of Slavonic, Central and Eastern European Studies, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (2001-03); Visiting Professor, Center for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom (1998-2001); Visiting Fellow, European University Institute, Florence, Italy (1999); Visiting Fellow, University of Essex, United Kingdom (1997); Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, Central European University, Prague, Czech Republic (1995-96)

Expertise
Political developments in Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan since 1992; development of democracy and market economy in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe; value change in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe; social capital and economic sociology of post-Communist households; living conditions, lifestyles and health in the former Soviet Union; politics in Austria