Kieran Williams

Associate Professor
Co-Chair, Department of Political Science
Office Location: Meredith 212
515-271-4522
kieran.williams@drake.edu

Kieran Williams has been teaching at Drake since Spring 2004. Previously he taught at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, where he was an associate professor in politics and a frequent consultant to the UK Foreign Office. He received his A.B. from Princeton and DPhil from Oxford.

A comparativist and specialist in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe, he has authored or co-authored four books, including a prize-winning account of the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia, studies of the creation of new intelligence agencies and electoral systems in post-Communist countries, and a biography of the writer-statesman Václav Havel. He is also the co-editor of a collection of essays on Havel, a regular reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and occasional blogger on Medium.

The courses Dr. Williams teaches include the following:

• POLS 065: Comparative Politics
• POLS 130: Transitions to Democracy
• POLS 134: Comparative Political Parties and Interest Groups
• POLS 135: Supreme Courts and Elections
• POLS 136: Intelligence Agencies
• POLS 137: Politics and Parliaments
• POLS 144: Modern European Political Systems
• POLS 146: Politics in Russia and Former Soviet Union
• POLS 167: The US & Iran
• POLS 181: Modern Political Theory