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The University of New Mexico

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Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920
cgonzal@unm.edu

April 19, 2007

Gleason Named Academic Fellow for Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

University of New Mexico Political Science Professor Gregory Gleason has been accepted as a 2007-08 academic fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. As an FDD fellow, he will participate in an educational program focusing on the threat of terrorism to democracy. The program takes place in Israel this spring.

“My concern is primarily with democracy. Unfortunately there is a lot of evidence that democracy is typically the first casualty of insurgency. It is very important for established democracies to take steps to protect themselves from insurgents and terrorists without sacrificing the values of tolerance, openness, fairness and free play that are so important to us,” Gleason said.

The FDD Academic Fellowship Program consists of an intensive lecture series of lectures by academics, diplomats and military officials from India, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and the U.S. as well as field trips to military, police and immigration facilities throughout Israel. The goal is to educate participants about terrorism and how democratic states combat the threat.

“As a political scientist I have been working on studying the problems and the possibilities of developing countries for nearly three decades. It is a very unfortunate fact that terrorists and insurgents in many countries in the developing world are carrying on irregular warfare. These people are trying to achieve advantage by employing secrecy, subterfuge, deception, ignorance or public naiveté in order to establish their own political order,” Gleason said.

“UNM has been very gracious and generous during my tenure at the university in permitting sabbatical leave that has made it has possible for me to study the problems of development and political order in the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia.” 

Gleason’s research includes applied projects aimed at improving governance and the possibilities for democracy in the developing world.

FDD is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. that seeks to educate Americans about the terrorist threat to democracies worldwide. FDD produces independent analyses of global terrorist threats that explore the historical, cultural, philosophical and ideological factors that drive terrorism and threaten the individual freedoms guaranteed within democratic societies.

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