Program Overview

About the Program:

            The Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy (PCD) currently conducts a three-part program at the University of Virginia.

            First, PCD supports three fellows each year to serve in residence at the University of Virginia to pursue their own advanced research. Fellows are recruited among those who have just finished or who are about to complete their doctoral dissertations. In addition, PCD has helped on occasion to support advanced scholars on sabbatical leave who wish to be at the University of Virginia in order to pursue their research.

            Second, PCD offers undergraduate instruction in small seminars on courses related to the American Political Tradition. Approximately 150 undergraduates each year are enrolled in this program. With assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities during the year 2006-2007, PCD developed two syllabi that it plans to share with other university departments or institutes.

            Third, PCD has sponsored a series of twelve lectures and seminars each year by invited speakers from outside the university. Each speaker conducts a class within the introductory course on the American Political Tradition, addressing a topic that is part of the regular syllabus. Speakers also meet with a group of graduate students and faculty to discuss an advanced topic of their own research.

 

About the Program Director:

James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he teaches courses in the area of American politics. He is author of a number of works 
on American political thought and political theory, most notably: Liberal Democracy and Political Science (Johns Hopkins University Press), Presidential Selection (Princeton University Press), Reconstructing America (Yale University Press) and, most recently, Nature and History in American Political Development (Harvard University Press). In addition, Professor Ceaser has written extensively on the presidency and presidential elections, having co-authored a well-known series on each national election since 1992. Professor Ceaser has held visiting positions in political science departments at several universities, including: The University of Bordeaux (Montesquieu), The University of Rennes, Harvard University, Oxford University and The University of Basel.

            Professor Ceaser has spent much time working in the areas of civic education and “democracy studies.” He has traveled on many occasions for the State Department giving lectures in foreign countries on American politics and advising on programs  for the study of American politics. His most important contribution in the area was his role in the planning and establishment of The George C. Marshall Center for European Studies in Garmisch, Germany, for which the United States Army awarded him in 1996 “The Joint Meritorious Unit Award for Total Engagement.” Professor Ceaser has been actively engaged in the American Political Science profession, and he has been a regular contributor of political commentary in the popular press.