SCHOOL of INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
American University · Washington, D.C.
FACULTY BIOGRAPHIES -- Robert Pastor
Robert Pastor
Professor, International Politics/U.S. Foreign Policy
Ph.D. Harvard University
M.P.A. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
B.A. Lafayette College
E-mail: rpastor@american.edu
Phone : 202-885-1520
Curriculum Vitae [pdf]
Dr. Robert A. Pastor is Professor of International Relations in the School of International Service and Co-Director of AU’s Center for North American Studies (CNAS) and the Center for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM). From 2002 until January 2008, Dr. Pastor was Vice President of International Affairs at American University where he transformed and expanded AU’s study abroad program, established the American University of Nigeria, initiated new programs on “language immersion” and Abroad at AU (a “Junior Year” program for international students), founded CNAS and CDEM, and directed the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform.
Dr. Pastor has combined a career of diplomacy, public policy, scholarship, and teaching. He served in the government as National Security Advisor for Latin America and North-South Issues (1977-81) and a consultant to the State and Defense Departments and the Central Intelligence Agency. He was nominated Ambassador to Panama in 1994. He was a consultant to the United Nations and directed programs on conflict resolution and democracy-building at The Carter Center, where he developed a new technique, “election-mediation,” for resolving chronic conflicts. He has helped negotiate the Panama Canal Treaties (1977-78), the release of political prisoners from Cuba (1979) and Colombia (1997), the restoration of constitutional government in Haiti (1994), dozens of election disputes, and a ceasefire with Hamas on the eve of the first Palestinian election (1996).
From 1985 to 2002, Dr. Pastor was Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University and a Fellow and Founding Director of the Carter Center's Latin American and Caribbean Program. He established and was the Executive Secretary of the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government, a group of 32 leaders chaired by Jimmy Carter, which has mediated elections. In 1996, as director of the democracy program at the Carter Center, he was invited by the government of China to organize a program on Village Elections, which The Carter Center continues.
Dr. Pastor was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia, a Fulbright Professor at El Colegio de Mexico, the Straus Visiting Professor at Harvard University, and the creator of the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program. He was Staff Director of the Commission on U.S.-Latin American Relations (1974-76), chaired by Sol Linowitz, and the Commission on Federal Election Reform (2005), chaired by Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker, III. He was Vice Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on the Future of North America (2005).
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, where he won the Toppan Prize for the best dissertation in political science. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (Institute for International Economics, 2001); A Century’s Journey: How the Great Powers Shaped the World (Basic Books, 1999), Limits to Friendship: The United States and Mexico, with Jorge Castaneda (Alfred Knopf, 1988), and Exiting the Whirlpool: US Foreign Policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean. Five of his books won awards. He has written 56 chapters of other books, 72 articles, and 77 op-ed articles for major newspapers, including The New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified before Congress 21 times since 1981 and is interviewed often on radio and television. He won the Sargent Shriver Humanitarian Service Award, the highest award for a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and the George W. Kidd Distinguished Alumnus Award from Lafayette College.
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