John Higley, Ph.D.
Professor of Government and Sociology
Director, Ctr. Australian & New Zealand Studies; Jack S. Blanton Chair in Australian Studies
Departments of Government and Sociology
College of Liberal Arts

CONTACT INFORMATION
Office: 512-232-7236 (Govt.); 512-471-9607 (Aus. Studies)
E-mail: jhigley@mail.la.utexas.edu

WEB PAGE
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/government/faculty/higleyjc

BIOGRAPHY
Professor Higley's interests are in general comparative politics and political sociology, especially the comparative study of political elites and political regimes. As director of the university's Center for Australian & New Zealand Studies, Higley also works on various policy issues in those countries and on their trade and other relations with the U.S.: The Challenge of NAFTA: North America, Australia, New Zealand, and the World Trade Regime (1993); The Politics of the Republic Referendum (2000); The US-Australia Relationship's Political Dimension: An American View (2007). He has conducted studies of Norwegian, Australian, Latin American and East European elites (Elite Structure and Ideology [1976]; Elites in Australia [1979]; Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America [1992]; Elites, Crises and the Origins of Regimes [1998]; Postcommunist Elites and Democracy in Eastern Europe [1998]; Elites After State Socialism [2000]; and he has written extensively about elite theory in contemporary social science: Elitism (1980), A New Elite Framework for Political Sociology (1990), Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy (2006), together with numerous articles and encyclopedia entries about elites and elite theory. Since 2001 he has served as Chair of the Research Committee on Political Elites of the International Political Science Association. From 2001 to 2006, Higley was chair of the Department of Government.