Paul J. D'Anieri is Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, and former Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost of University of California, Riverside. Prior to his position at UCR, D'Anieri served at the University Kansas as the dean of the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) from 2008 until 2014, as the Associate Dean for Humanities from 2004 to 2008, and as the Associate Dean for International Programs from 1999 to 2003.
D'Anieri is a political scientist specializing in politics and international relations in the former Soviet Union, focusing on Ukraine and Russia. He is also considered an expert on economics, finance, and budgeting in US universities, which became a focus during his administrative career.
D'Anieri received his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in International Relations in 1986. He then went on to earn a master's degree and doctorate in government from Cornell University in 1991.
Academic career D'Anieri has been called "one of the leading scholars of the study of contemporary Ukraine"
D'Anieri's research focuses on politics and foreign policy in the post-Soviet statesBiography, University of Florida with particular focus on Ukrainian politics and Ukraine's relations with Russia. He spent 1993–1994 in Ukraine on a Fulbright Grant and has written a number of books and articles about the politics of Ukraine.Paul D'Anieri , University of Kansas He has received several awards for his work, including a Fulbright Grant, a Fellowship from the Smith-Richardson Foundation, and several grants from the US government totaling over a million dollars.
D'Anieri presciently brought to readers' attention the activity in Ukraine of the US political consultant Paul Manafort in a chapter published in 2013, ("Autocratic Diffusion and the Pluralization of Democracy," in Power in a Complex Global System edited by Louis W. Pauly, Bruce W. Jentleson, p. 87) In the fall of 2017, he served as the Eugene and Daymel Shklar Research Fellow at Harvard University, where he conducted research for a book tentatively titled "From 'Civilized Divorce' to Uncivil War: Russia, Ukraine, and the West, 1991–2017."
D'Anieri's first book, Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations, (SUNY, 1999) examined the dilemmas Ukraine faced in trying to be politically independent from Russia while remaining highly interdependent economically. He showed that the Ukraine-Russia relationship was unlikely to resolve itself, and that Ukraine's ability or inability to reform domestically would strongly condition its ability to achieve the autonomy and sovereignty its leaders coveted. Writing in the American Political Science Review, Yaroslav Belinsky called the book "ambitious [...] well-researched and documented [and] clearly written."
Slavic Review wrote that "D'Anieri's book provides a vivid discussion of the developing relationship between these two important countries, thereby opening a forum for what will certainly be a fascinating topic for years to come." Sherman W. Garnett of The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote that D'Anieri "has taken an important topic in a new and important aspect of international relations and competently illuminated its many facets."
Another reviewer wrote: "the book offers a sound practical and theoretical footing on which to understand the issues surrounding Ukrainian-Russian interdependence, as they currently stand and as they may be played out in the future."
D'Anieri's second book, Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design (2007), delved into Ukraine's internal politics to show how and why it seemed unable to consolidate democracy, while also resisting authoritarianism. In the Russian Review, Taras Kuzio wrote that D'Anieri "accurately predicted, as seen in the 2007 constitutional crisis, that the reforms could lead to stalemate and increased presidential-parliamentary conflict," and that the book "makes an original contribution to contemporary studies of Ukrainian politics by integrating political science theory into Ukrainian politics and placing this within a comparative context."
Writing in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies, the eminent Canadian scholar of Ukraine Bohdan Harasymiw wrote "D'Anieri's new book transcends all earlier work on Ukrainian politics."
A review in the specialist journal Europe-Asia Studies called Understanding Ukrainian Politics "one of the very best books published on the subject, and undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable examples of first-class political science research on East European and post-Communist transitions."
In 2011, D'Anieri published the edited volume Orange Revolution and Aftermath: Mobilization, Apathy and the State in Ukraine (Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center). A reviewer said the collected essays "make a profound contribution to the study of Ukrainian civil society and its evolving relationship to the state."
Dilemmas of State-Led Nation Building in Ukraine, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), which D'Anieri co-edited with Taras Kuzio was named a Choice "Outstanding Academic Book" of 2003.
D'Anieri's widely used textbook, International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs, is in its fourth edition. Reviewers said: "The writing style is compelling, the coverage of theories is strong, and the boxes are good at promoting critical thinking" and "The section on terrorism is the best I've read in an intro book--concise and balanced." Another said: "I have adopted the D'Anieri textbook in the past and will do so again in the future because it is one of the best, if not the best, IR textbook available in the U.S. at this time." Reviews of the second addition included statements such as: "The first truly student-oriented text on this subject, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: POWER AND PURPOSE IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS is a full-length, highly engaging introduction to the study of world politics". D'Anieri's cohesive pedagogical framework presents the study of international politics as a series of intellectual puzzles and policy problems that help students make the connection between power and purpose, continuity and change, emerging problems and traditional ones. He also addresses common student deficiencies in history, policy, culture, and geography through case studies of real-world events, and emphasizes that a better understanding of international relations can often be gained by examining problems from multiple approaches."
In 1997, D'Anieri received a prestigious Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching. At the time, he was the only assistant professor ever to have received the award, which singled out his "teaching and advising at the Freshman-Sophomore level." D'Anieri also earned praise from the graduate students he worked with. One said "Paul D'Anieri taught me the value of good research design, particularly having a good research question and a strong thesis."
Administrative career D'Anieri is a sought after speaker on how universities can manage the financial challenges they face while maintaining their focus on their academic mission. He has worked extensively with the American Council of Education providing training for department chairs and for rising higher education executives. He is known for work in three related areas: Implementation of Responsibility Center Management, the measurement of instructional costs through Activity Based Costing, and the broader topic of how budgeting systems can help or impede connecting universities to their mission.
University of Kansas A year after receiving tenure at the University of Kansas, D'Anieri was named associate dean of international programs, a position in which he served from 1999 to 2003. Among his major accomplishments was chairing a task force convened to determine how to make it possible for every KU undergraduate to have a "significant international experience." The result was the KU "Global Awareness Program," which is still in place today, and was adopted at other institutions, including East Carolina University.Memorandum of Request ecu.edu He continued his focus on internationalization by developing a new strategy at the University of Florida and by hiring the first vice provost of international affairs at the University of California Riverside.
From 2003 to 2004, D'Anieri was director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Kansas, where he "continued the tradition of excellence in CREES leadership". D'Anieri was principal investigator on the center's $786,000 Title VI National Resource Center grant from the US Department of Education, as well as a grant through the Freedom Support Act to develop "Critical New and Expanded Capabilities in the Social Sciences in Ukraine."
From 2004 to 2008, D'Anieri was associate dean for humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas. This was the first time someone from a non-humanities department had been asked to serve in the position. D'Anieri oversaw a major overhaul of the main humanities building, Wescoe Hall. He also had the undergraduate education portfolio in the college, and oversaw a reform of general education requirements and a strengthening of academic integrity rules and processes. D'Anieri was instrumental in forging a partnership between KU and the US Army's nearby base at Ft. Leavenworth, a major component of which was a program to educate officers about cultural aptitude.
University of Florida In 2008, D'Anieri was recruited to be the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, that campus's largest college, teaching over 35,000 students each year. Florida President Bernie Machen said "Paul is a rising star and he has a fresh perspective and a lot of new ideas." D'Anieri's tenure at Florida, which coincided with the Great Recession, was characterized by increasing achievement with reduced resources.
Among D'Anieri's major accomplishments at Florida were the adoption of a new CLAS strategic plan, the development of a new interdisciplinary humanities course, called "What is the Good Life?" to be required of all UF undergraduates, the successful completion of the CLAS portion of Florida's $1.7 billion "Florida Tomorrow" campaign, and creation of new undergraduate programs in sustainability studies, international studies and medical humanities.
In collaboration with UF's College of Medicine, D'Anieri helped start the UF Health Disparities Research and Intervention Program to "train at least 360 health workers in Alachua, Gadsden and Volusia counties over eight months." Michael Good, M.D., dean of the UF College of Medicine called the project "a fine example of how strong collaborations between researchers and communities can give people the tools they need to change their lives for the better."