Walter D. Connor

Biography

"Walter D. Connor is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Boston University. Connor helped to pioneer the interdisciplinary study of international relations at Boston University, as an integral member of the original Center of International Relations, then the Department of International Relations, and finally the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. He was also a distinguished member of the Department of Political Science, where he served twice as department chair. Throughout his career, Professor Walter Connor has exemplified the interdisciplinary character of the teaching and scholarship which is the hallmark of the Pardee School for Global Studies. Trained as a sociologist at Princeton University specializing in Polish and Soviet/Russian society, he extended his scholarly work into the fields of politics and international relations. After beginning his academic career in the University of Michigan’s Department of Sociology, Walter Connor entered government service as Director of Soviet and East European Studies at the Foreign Service Institute for the U.S. Department of State, where he served from 1976 to 1984. His work there was recognized by the Department of State’s Meritorious Honor Award. He then moved to Boston University, where he became one of the few faculty members who received joint appointments in three different departments: Sociology, Political Science, and International Relations. As a trusted adviser and colleague of Ambassador Hermann Eilts, the founding Chairman of the Department of International Relations, Walter Connor helped to shape the study of international relations at Boston University. Walter Connor’s academic output includes books ranging from Deviance in Society: Crime, Delinquency, and Alcoholism; Socialism, Politics and Equality: Hierarchy and Change in Eastern Europe and the USSR; Socialism’s Dilemmas: State and Society in the Soviet Bloc; The Accidental Proletariat: Workers, Politics and Crisis in Gorbachev’s Russia; and Tattered Banners: Labor, Conflict and Corporatism in Post-Communist Russia, as well as numerous articles in learned journal and service to the profession. He also was an important voice in the practice of foreign affairs, not only through his writings but also in a variety of professional activities including testimony before Congressional committees. Throughout his time at Boston University, Professor Connor was known among his colleagues and his many loyal students for his sense of humor as well as his unwavering devotion to the importance of a liberal education and democratic values."

Research Interest

Comparative Politics, International Relations, Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics.