Ronald John TERCHEK
University of Maryland
Dept. of Government and Politics
College Park, MD 20740
Phone: 301-405-4129 (office)
301-270-3992 (home)
E-mail address:
rterchek@gvpt.umd.edu
Fax: 301-314-9690
Professional Career
Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, 1965-present
Selected recent publications and papers
Books
Gandhi: Struggling for Autonomy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998; Delhi: Sage of India, 2000.
Republican Paradoxes and Liberal Anxieties: Retrieving Neglected Fragments in Political Theory. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
Edited works
Democratic Political Theory: A Reader coedited with Thomas Conte. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Intereactions: Foreign Policy as Public Policy (co-edited with Don Piper). Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1983.
Chapters in books
“Swaraj and Autonomy” in Gandhi and Swaraj edited by Anthony Parel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. In the series, “Comparative Political Theory.”
“Leo Strauss and the Republican Tradition,” in Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime edited by Kenneth Deutsch and John Murley. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, (1999).
“Gandhian Politics,” in New Perspective and dimensions on Gandhi edited by V. T. Patil. New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1989.
“Expanding Equality of Opportunity: The Case of Nehru,” in Studies on Nehru edited by V. T. Patil. New Delhi: Sterling Publications, 1987.
“The Fruits of Success and the Crisis of Liberalism” in Liberals on Liberalism edited by Alfanso Damico. Totowa: Roman & Littlefield, 1986.
“Gandhi’s Democratic Theory,” in Political Thought of Modern India edited by Thomas Pantham and Kenneth Deutsch. New Delhi: Sage of India, 1986.
“The Liberal Language of Rights: From Locke to Rawls,” in Political Thought and Political Theory edited by Bhikhu Parekh and Thomas Pantham. New Delhi: Sage of India, 1986.
“The Psychoanalytic Basis of Gandhi’s Politics,” in Studies on Gandhi edited by V.T. Patil. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1983.
Articles
“Problematizing Modernity: Gandhi’s Decentering Impulse,” Gandhi Marg, 23, 1 (April-June, 2001).
“Recovering the Political Aristotle” with David Moore, American Political Science Review 94, 4 (December, 2000).
“Political Metaphors: Markets or Oligopolies,” Associations, September 1999.
“Gandhi and the Autonomous Woman” with Nitis das Gupta, Journal of Gandhian Studies. 1998.
“Gandhi and Moral Autonomy,” Gandhi Marg, 13, 4 (March 1992).
“Punishing Liberals or Rehabilitating Liberalism?” American Political Science Review, 83, 4 (Dec., 1989).
“Conflict and Coalition: The Hobbesian Foundations of Formal Theory,” Political Science Review, 1985.
“Retrieving Pluralism,” Ethics, 94 (July 1, 1984).
“Positive Political Theory and Heresthetics: The Axioms and Assumptions of William Riker,” Political Science Reviewer, 1984.
Selected papers at professional conferences
“Whose Realism? Which Reality?” American Political Science Association, September, 2001.
“Pluralism: Modern and Postmodern,” Midwest Political Science Association, April, 2001.
“The New Fatalism and Democratic Politics,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 2000.
“Gandhi’s Critique of Class and Caste,” Midwest Political Science Association, April, 2000.
“Problematizing Modernity and Modernization: Gandhi’s Decentering Impulse,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 1999.
“Gandhi and Autonomy,” Central American Philosophical Association, May, 1999.
“Gandhi, Tradition, and Cultural Globalization,” Western Political Science Association. March, 1998.
“Political Metaphors: Markets or Oligopolies,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 1998.
“Democracy and Our Discontents,” Northeast Political Science Association, Nov., 1997.
“Democratic Citizenship Revisited,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 1997.
“Gandhi on Modernity and Modernization,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 1996.
“The Stakes of Citizenship and the Citizen’s Stakes,” American Political Science Association. Sept. 1995.
“The Cultures of Liberalism,” Southern Political Science Association, Nov. 1994.
“Civic Realism and Contemporary Democratic Theory,” American Political Science Association, Sept. 1994.
“Reconstituting the Founding: Machiavelli, Lincoln, and Political Rhetoric,” Roundtable on Political Myth, Rhetoric, and Symbolism, American Political Science Association, Sept. 1993.
“Noisy Democrats: Machiavelli and Rousseau,” Paper, Southwestern Political Science Association Meetings, March, 1993
“A Rawlsian Reading of Gandhi,” International Political Science Association, Paris, 1985.
Selected Professional Activities
Offices in national organizations
Foundations of Political Theory: Chair 1982-83, 1988-92; Member, Board of Directors, 1993-96; Member, Best Paper Award Selection Committee, 1997; Organizer, 30 panels for the Foundations in conjunction with the American Political Science Association Meetings, 2002.
Conference for the Study of Political Thought: Chair, Spitz Award Selection Committee for the best book in liberal democratic theory, 1992-93. Member of the Spitz Award Committee, 1987-1989 and 1993-2001; Coconvenor of the Baltimore-Washington Sections of the Conference 1977-2000.
American Political Science Association: member, Committee on Organized Sections, 1989-92; member, President’s Advisory Committee on Organized Sections, 1993
Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Gandhian Studies, 1996-2002.
External doctoral examiner at the following Indian Universities: Karnatak, Orisa, Mysore, North Bengal, and Sambalpur.
Delivered a series of lectures on modern Western political theory, American political theory and Gandhi’s political theory at the Universities of Delhi, Baroda, and Calcutta in March 2001, at the Universities of Delhi, Baroda, and Rajasthan, January 1994; at the Universities of Delhi and Baroda, January, l989 and Nehru University and the University of Baroda, March l984.
Honors and Awards
“Outstanding Book of the Year” (1998) for Gandhi: Struggling for Autonomy by Choice: The Journal of Research and University Libraries
Elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, Phi Kappa Phi
Lilly Fellowship, 1993-94.
Various University, College, and Departmental Teaching Excellence Awards, between 1971 and 2001, most recently the University Mentor of the Year Award, 2001.
Who’s Who in the East (Latest entry, 1999).
Who’s Who in America, 2000-2002.
Research Interests
Classical Liberalism: Locke, Smith, and J. S Mill.
Liberal democratic theory.
Gandhi’s political theory with special emphasis on his critique of modernity and modernization.
Civic realism.
Work in progress
“Democracy’s Fate: Political Minimalism and Civic Realism.” A book manuscript based on several papers on democratic theory that I previously delivered at various conferences. The first part of the book looks at some of the historical assumptions of liberal-democratic theory and the civic republican alternative. Next, I consider various models of contemporary democratic practice, with particular attention given to pluralism–both modern and postmodern, performance democracy, and market theories of democracy. The last section deals with issues of globalization and democracy, complexity and neorealism, and changing ideas of political action and political fatalism.
“Gandhi: Between Past and Future.” A book manuscript based on several papers I presented earlier. The section dealing with the past takes up such themes as the Indian Renaissance and its contributions to Gandhi’s thinking, the economic condition of India during British colonialization with special emphasis on changing patterns of property ownership, and Gandhi’s critiques of modernity and inequality. The section dealing with the future takes up various themes in Gandhi’s writings which speak to important contemporary issues, such as the environment, globalization, conflict and nonviolence, and secularism and plurality.