Profile
Professor Arato is the Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory in the Sociology Department at the New School for Social Research. He has taught at L'École des hautes études and Sciences Po in Paris, as well as at the Central European University in Budapest. He had a Fulbright teaching grant to Montevideo in 1991, and was Distinguished Fulbright Professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt/M,Germany. Professor Arato has served as a consultant for the Hungarian Parliament on constitutional issues (1996-1997), and as U.S. State Department Democracy Lecturer and Consultant (on Constitutional issues) on Nepal (2007). He was re-appointed by the State Department in the same capacity for Zimbabwe (November of 2010), where he had discussions with civil society activists and political leaders in charge of the constitution-making process. He was an invited Professor at the College de France (Spring 2012).
Professor Arato's scholarly research is widely recognized, and conferences and sessions have been organized around his work at University of Glasgow Law School (Spring 2009) and Koc University, Istanbul (December 2009), as well as at the Faculty of Law, Witwaterstrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa (August 2010). Arato was appointed Honorary Professor and Bram Fischer Visiting Scholar at the School of Law, University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg (June 2010-June 2011).
Interests include the politics of civil society, constitutional theory, comparative politics of constitution-making, religion, secularism and constitutions. He also teaches general courses in political sociology, social theory and sociology of religion.
Concentrations include the history of social and political thought, legal and constitutional theory, historical problems of revolutions and radical transformations, and sociology of law.
Degrees Held
PhD 1975, University of Chicago
Recent Publications
Books
The Adventures of the Constituent Power: Beyond Revolutions? (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Post Sovereign Constitution Making: Learning and Legitimacy (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Constitution Making Under Occupation: The Politics of Imposed Revolution Iraq (Columbia, 2009)
Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)
Habermas on Law, Democracy, and Legitimacy: Critical Exchanges, co-editor with Michael Rosenfield (University of California, 1998)
From Neo-Marxism to Democratic Theory: Essays on the Critical Theory of Soviet-Type Societies (Routledge, 1994)
Civil Society and Political Theory, co-author with Jean L. Cohen (MIT, 1992)
Crisis and Reform in Eastern Europe, co-editor with Ferenc Feher (Transaction, 1991)
Gorbachev: The Debate, co-editor with Ferenc Feher (Humanities Press International, 1989)
The Young Lukács and the Origins of Western Marxism, co-author with Paul Breines (Seabury, 1979)
The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, co-editor with Eike Gephardt (Bloomsbury, 1978)
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
"Civil Society, Populism, and Religion," with Jean Cohen (Constellations, 2017)
"Democratic Legitimacy and Forms of Constitutional Change" (Constellations, 2017)
“Beyond the Alternative Reform or Revolution: Post Sovereign Constitution Making and Latin America” (Wake Forest Law Review, 2015)
"International Role in State-Making in Ukraine: The Promise of a Two-Stage Constituent Process" (German Law Journal, 2015)
“Political Theology and Populism” (Social Research, 2013)
“Conventions, Constituent Assemblies, and Round Tables: Models, Principles and Elements of Democratic Constitution-Making” (Global Constitutionalism, 2012)
“Lefort: Philosopher of 1989" (Constellations, 2012)
“Multi-Track Constitutionalism Beyond Carl Schmitt” (Constellations, 2011)
“Revisiting Civil Society” in The New Politics of European Civil Society (Routledge, 2011)
“Post-Sovereign Constitution Making in Hungary: After Success, Partial Failure, and Now What” (South African Journal of Human Rights, 2010)
“Democratic Constitution-Making and Unfreezing the Turkish Process” (Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2010)
“Banishing the Sovereign? Internal and External Sovereignty in Arendt” in Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with Hannah Arendt (Cambridge, 2010)
"Redeeming the Still Redeemable and Post Sovereign Constitution Making” (International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 2009)
"Post Sovereign Constitution-Making in Hungary: After Success, Partial Failure, and Now What?" (in Hungarian) (Fundamentum, 2009)
“Banishing the Sovereign? Internal and External Sovereignty in Arendt” (Constellations, 2009)
"Sistani v. Bush: Constitutional Politics in Iraq" (Constellations, 2004)
"The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship" (Constellations, 2003)
Research Interests
At the moment Professor Arato is focusing on three problem areas: constitution-making in divided societies, with recent interests in Turkey and Israel; working on a new theory of constitutional authority (will be available as a set of web lectures); and putting out three volumes on constitution-making and on the theory and history of dictatorships.
Awards And Honors
Honorary Professor at the University of Witwaterstrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (August 2010)
Distinguished Fulbright Professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt/M, Germany (2007-2008)