Phone: 301.405.4135
Office: Tydings Hall
Email: ksoltan at umd•edu

Curriculum Vitae

Karol Sołtan is working to develop both the new field of civic studies and an intellectually and politically ambitious conception of moderation. As part of these projects his main research interests have been constitutionalism and development broadly understood.

His research has ranged from theoretical accounts of power and legitimacy, and reformulations of the notion of constitutionalism, to practical questions about policy and reform interventions to promote long term development in fragile states.

At the University of Maryland, he teaches in the Department of Government and Politics, and as part of the program of the Committee for Politics, Philosophy and Public Policy.

He has also taught in the University of Maryland School of Law, in the Department of Economics at the University of Warsaw, and in the National School of Public Administration in Warsaw. He has been a visiting scholar at the School of Law at the University of Toulouse.

Among his recent publications is a series of books he co-edited and to which he contributed: A New Constitutionalism; The Constitution of Good Societies; Institutions and Social Order; Politics from Anarchy to Democracy; and Global Democracy and its Difficulties.

Sołtan was co-founder of the Conference Group on Jurisprudence and Public Law, and of the Committee for the Political Economy of the Good Society.

Sołtan’s engagements outside the academic world have also reflected his commitment to civic moderation. In 2000 he served as Deputy Director of the Office of Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, and for two months he was also Acting Cabinet Member for Political Affairs in the Transitional Government of East Timor. From 2003 to 2004 he directed the Recovered States Task Force as part of the IRIS Project on Fragile States for USAID. During the summer of 2005, he spent a month in Iraq as a consultant to the Kurdistan government in the negotiations on the Iraqi constitution.

United Nations

Deputy Director, Department of Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs, United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (2000). Main duties: development of a broad ranging program to promote the long term prospects of democracy in East Timor, including constitutional development, development of parliamentary institutions and cabinet, local democracy, civic education, and an anti-corruption campaign. For about two months I also served as Acting Director of the Department and Acting Cabinet Member for Political Affairs in the Transitional Government of East Timor.
 

Consulting

Institute for New Democracies (2006). Consulting on constitutional questions in Uzbekistan.

Kurdistan Government (2005, with follow up in 2006 and 2007). Worked in Erbil and Baghdad to advise the Kurdistan government (and others) on the constitutional negotiation for the Constitution of Iraq and the Constitution of Kurdistan.

USAID (2003-5). IRIS Project on Fragile States. Director, Recovered States Task Force. Report: Jack Goldstone, Jonathan Haughton, Karol Sołtan and Clifford Zinnes, Strategy Framework for the Assessment and Treatment of Fragile States (PPC IDEAS Project, USAID). Working Paper: Karol Soltan, “Rebuilding Constitutional Order.”

President Lech Wałęsa's Council on Economic Development (1993). Participated in the development of a Charter of Economic Principles for the Republic of Poland.

National School of Public Administration in Warsaw (1993-4). Initiation and development of a program of in-service training for senior government officials and a curriculum in public policy analysis.

Rice University (1990). Program evaluation of the core course in social science.

Foundation in Support of Local Democracy in Poland (1990). Training of newly elected local officials: video and working paper, "Działania Obywatelskie a Demokracja Lokalna."
 

Elected

Town Council, Garrett Park, MD (2005-2007)
 

Professional Organizations

Co-founder (1986) and co-chair (1986-1995), Conference Group on Jurisprudence and Public Law (with Kim Scheppele)

Co-founder (1988) and member of the Executive Board (1988- ), Committee for the Political Economy of the Good Society (with Gar Alperovitz and Stephen Elkin)

Member (1986-88), Committee for the Foundations of Democratic Government

Member, Editorial Board, Social Justice Research Member, Editorial Board, The Good Society