Mitchell A. Orenstein
AUTHOR

Mitchell A. Orenstein

Politics & Social Sciences
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Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Professor Orenstein's work focuses on political economy and international affairs, with an emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe. Orenstein's first book, Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe (University of Michigan Press, 2001), won the 1997 Gabriel A. Almond Award of the American Political Science Association for the best dissertation in comparative politics. This book compares strategies for economic reform adopted in the Czech Republic and Poland after 1989 and their political, economic, and distributional consequences. It shows why democracies, under certain circumstances, can be more effective than dictatorships in economic policy making. Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform (Princeton University Press, 2008) won the 2009 Charles H. Levine Prize of the International Political Science Association for a book that "makes a contribution of considerable theoretical or practical significance in the field of public policy and administration, takes an explicitly comparative perspective, and is written in an accessible style." Privatizing Pensions demonstrates the impact of a coalition of transnational actors led by the World Bank on pension privatization worldwide. This study shows that transnational actors can exert a powerful influence on domestic policy reform in democratic states despite lacking direct veto power, by influencing the ideas and policy preferences of domestic veto players. Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of Risk (Columbia University Press, 2009) examines pension reform options for the United States under the Obama administration, drawing lessons from international experience. Professor Orenstein continues to study the effect of transnational actors on policy-making in democratic states and is starting a new project on the crisis of free market capitalism. Professor Orenstein has also published two books on European social policy with the World Bank. Roma in an Expanding Europe: Breaking the Poverty Cycle, co-authored with Dena Ringold and Erika Wilkens, is a seminal study of Roma poverty, sociology, and public health. It won the Voter's Choice Award for the most innovative analytical and advisory activity and the World Bank Europe/Central Asia Knowledge Fair in 2004. Pension Reform in Europe: Process and Progress, co-edited with Robert Holzmann and Michal Rutkowski, analyzes the political economy of pension reform throughout the European Union. Prior to joining the faculty of University of Pennsylvania in 2015, Orenstein held appointments at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Northeastern, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, and Moscow State Universities. He currently holds an appointment as Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Orenstein's research has been recognized with fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has consulted for the World Bank, USAID, the government of Slovakia, and other organizations. Professor Orenstein has lived for several years in Europe - in Britain, France, Czech Republic, Poland, and Russia. His hobbies include travel, piano, and coaching baseball and softball.
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