Martin Bútora
Martin Bútora,
a sociologist, author, and diplomat, was one of the founders of the Public Against Violence movement in Slovakia in November 1989, and served as Human Rights Advisor to President Václav Havel (1990-1992). He taught at Charles University in Prague and at Trnava University before founding the Institute for Public Affairs (in 1997), an independent public policy think tank in Bratislava, and becoming its first president. Between 1999 and 2003, he served as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States. He writes on civil society, foreign policy, and democratic transformation and is also an author of three prosaic works. Among his recent publications are Odklínanie (Breaking the Curse), 2004, Global Report on Slovakia, 2005, 2006, 2007 (co-author and co-editor), Democracy and Populism in Central Europe, 2007 (co-author and co-editor); in October 2007 issue of Journal of Democracy, he authored Nightmares from the Past, Dreams of the Future.