International Forum for Democratic Studies Research Council Member

João Carlos Espada

Catholic University of Portugal

João Carlos Espada is the director and founder (1996) of the Institute for Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal, where he is professor of political studies. He was previously a tenured research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. From January 2011 to December 2013, he was the first chair holder of the European Parliament/Bronislaw Geremek European Civilization Chair at the College of Europe, campus of Natolin (Warsaw). He earned his D.Phil (1994) from the University of Oxford, St. Antony’s College, under the supervision of Lord Ralf Dahrendorf, and has taught at Brown (1994-95), Stanford (1996) and Georgetown (1999-2000) universities in the US. He is editor of the quarterly journal Nova Cidadania, and president of the Portuguese section of the International Churchill Society/Churchill Centre as well as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy.

Dr. Espada is the author of ten books and editor of another ten in political theory and the history of political thought, all in Portuguese and several in English. He has contributed regular opinion columns to the press over the last 30 years, presently having a weekly column at the daily newspaper Público. He was political adviser to the President of the Portuguese Republic Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva from 2006-2011, and to President Mário Soares, 1986-1991. He is a correspondent member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, and a member of the Naval Academy and the International Academy of Portuguese Culture. He is a 2015 recipient of Republic of Poland’s The Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit, a 2012 recipient of the Republic of Poland’s Bene Merito Distinction, and a 2010 recipient of the European Solidarity Centre’s Medal of Gratitude. In 1996, he was awarded the title of “Grande Oficial da Ordem do Mérito” by the President of the Republic of Portugal, Mário Soares. He is the secretary of the Oxford Society of Portugal and the Liaison Officer of St. Antony’s College Alumni Network in Portugal.

His works include Social Citizenship Rights: A Critique of F.A. Hayek and Raymond Plant, with a Foreword by Ralf Dahrendorf (London: MacMillan, 1996); The Democratic Invention (Editor with Marc F. Plattner; Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); A Tradição Anglo-Americana da Liberdade: Um Olhar Europeu (Lisboa, Principia, 2008; English version with Ashgate forthcoming in 2016); O Mistério Inglês e a Corrente de Ouro: Ensaios sobre a Cultura Política de Língua Inglesa (Lisboa, Aletheia, 2010), and Portugal, a Europa e o Atlântico (Lisboa, Aletheia, 2014).


Forum Publications

“Euroskepticism Arrives: The Missing Debate,” Journal of Democracy (Oct. 2014)

“European Disintegration? The Sources of Extremism”, Journal of Democracy (October, 2012)

“Tocqueville Reconsidered: The Perils of Prosperity”, Journal of Democracy (January, 2000)

With Marc F. Plattner (eds), The Democratic Invention, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

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