William Selinger is a political theorist and historian of political thought who teaches in the Constitutional Studies program. His research focuses on the rise of representative democracy in the modern world and on the crises to which this political form has been repeatedly subject. He has published in History of European Ideas, Review of Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, Modern Intellectual History, Contemporary Political Theory, Tocqueville Review, and Constellations. His first book, Parliamentarism: From Burke to Weber, winner of the Montreal Political Theory Manuscript Award, was published by Cambridge University Press in the Ideas in Context series. His next book, under contract with Princeton University Press, is a comprehensive study of Montesquieu’s life and thought.
Selinger holds a PhD from Harvard University and a BA from the University of Chicago. Before coming to OU, he taught at University College London.
