Valerie Bunce is the Aaron Binenkorb Professor Emerita of Cornell University. She is a political scientist who began her career as a specialist on the political economy of the Soviet bloc. Once communism fell and the Soviet, Yugoslav, and Czechoslovak states dismembered from 1989-1992, her teaching focused on transitions to democracy and dictatorship and U.S. democracy assistance in Russia; Ukraine; the Caucasus; Poland; and Hungary.
She is the author and co-author/co-editor of five books with a sixth one currently under review that addresses challenges to democracy in Europe; the U.S.; Asia; and Africa. She has taught at Lake Forest College; Northwestern University; University of Chicago; Cornell University; University of Zagreb; and Central European University. She retired from Cornell in 2019.
The event is sponsored by The History Club of Ithaca College and the Departments of History and Politics.