Takis S. Pappas, Ph.D., Yale University, 1995, is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. He has previously taught at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1999-2004), the University of Athens (1998), and the Greek Open University. In 1995-1996 he was a Jean Monnet Fellow in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. His current academic and research interests include the rise of radical mass movements in democratic settings, charismatic political leadership, and party system change. He is the author ofMaking Party Democracy in Greece (London: Macmillan, 1999) and several articles in English and Greek.
During his stay at the Hellenic Studies Center at Yale University (January-February 2005), he explored the conditions of the emergence of mass radicalism in such diverse settings as Greece, Yugoslavia, and Venezuela. As part of his ongoing research, he also presented a paper entitled “Mass Radicalism and Symbolic Politics: The Rise of the Greek Socialist Party”.