Jeffrey Kopstein is Dean’s Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. In his research, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence, voting patterns of minority groups, antisemitism, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society. These interests are central topics in his books, The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, 1945-1989 (UNC Press 1997); Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2018); and Politics, Memory, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2023).  His most recent book is The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future (Polity, 2024).

This lecture is sponsored by the Political Science Department's Kulla Lecture Fund, The Center for Freedom & Western Civilization, and Russian & Eurasian Studies.