Harvard University, B.A., Social Studies, 1964; Columbia University, Ph. D., Sociology, 1973


Peace Corps Volunteer, Republic of Niger, 1964 – 66
Instructor to Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1971 – 74
Assistant Professor to Professor of International Studies and of Sociology, University of Washington, 1975 –


 --Member of the Joint Committee for Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, 1976-77 and 1982-88
--Consultant for Radio Free Europe, 1985 (evaluating Romanian language broadcasts)
--Consulting Editor, American Journal of Sociology, 1986-88
--Founder and First Editor, Eastern European Politics and Societies, 1986-1989, with a U.S. State Department Grant, Member Editorial Board of the journal since 1989
--Guest Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, 1987 (for research on Eastern European economic history)
--Visiting Professor of Sociology, National Taiwan University, 1989
--Chair, Russian and East European Studies Program, University of Washington, 1988 - 1991
--Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the East European Program, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, 1990 - 1995
--John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 1991-1992 (for research on tyranny)
--Guest Scholar, Rockefeller Foundation Center, Bellagio, Italy, 1992
--Visiting Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, 1992
--Visiting Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University, 1993
--Consultant for United States Information Agency, 1993 (planning higher education grants in the Balkans for USAID)
--Consultant for the National Endowment for Democracy, 1995 (evaluating civil society grants in Romania)
--Visiting Professor of Sociology, University of California at San Diego, 1996
--Visiting Professor of Sociology, Bogazici University in Istanbul, summer 1997
--Member of the Committee on Ethnopolitical warfare of the American Psychological Association, 1997 - 1998
--Acting Chair, International Studies Program, University of Washington, 1999
--Consultant, Ford Foundation, 1999 (evaluating higher education grants in Central Europe)
--Consultant, CARE Niger, 2000-2001 (developing civil society programs)
--Founder and co-chair with Resat Kasaba of University of Washington’s Center for the Study of Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 2000-2004
--Chair, International Studies Program, University of Washington, 2001-2004
--Consultant, CARE Côte d’Ivoire, 2003-2006 (political analysis and program planning)
--Recipient with Resat Kasaba of Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar grant (for the study of ethnic conflict), 2001-2004
--Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, 2004-2005 (for research on African conflicts)
--Consultant for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2005 (author of report on political conditions in West Africa and how these might affect refugee flows)
--Visiting Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 2007


--Social Change in a Peripheral Society (New York: Academic Press, 1976). Romanian translation (2002).
--Social Change in the Twentieth Century (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977). Korean (1984) and Italian (1985) translations..
--Translator with Holley Coulter Chirot of Henri H. Stahl's Traditional Romanian Villages (Cambridge: The University Press, 1980).
--Social Change in the Modern Era (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). Korean (1987) and Chinese (1991) translations.
--Editor of The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Paperback edition, 1991. Romanian translation (2004).
--Editor of The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991).
--Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age (New York: Free Press, 1994). Paperback edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Polish translation (1997).
--How Societies Change (Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1994). Romanian translation (1996).
--Editor with Anthony Reid of Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modern Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).
--Editor with Martin Seligman, Ethnopolitical Warfare: Causes, Consequences, and Possible Solutions (Washington DC: American Psychological Association Press, 2001).
--Author with Clark McCauley, Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). Chinese (2007), Swedish (2008), and Finnish (2008) translations. Paperback edition (Princeton University Press, 2010).
--Contentious Identities: Ethnic, Religious and Nationalist Conflicts in Today’s World (New York: Routledge, 2011).


--"Urban and rural economies in the Western Sudan; Birni N'Konni and its hinterland," Cahiers d'etudes africaines 8:4 (1968), 549-565.
--"The growth of the market and servile labor systems in agriculture," Journal of Social History 8 (Winter, 1975), 67-80.
--With Charles Ragin, "The market, tradition and peasant rebellion: the case of Romania in l907," American Sociological Review 40:4 (1975), 428-444.
--"Social change in Communist Romania," Social Forces 57:2 (1978), 457-499.
--"The corporatist model and socialism: notes on Romanian development," Theory and Society 9 (1980), 363-38l.
--With Thomas Hall) "World-system theory," in Annual Review of Sociology. Volume 8, Ralph Turner, ed., (Palo Alto: Annual Reviews, 1982), pp. 8l-l06.
--With Karen Barkey, "States in search of legitimacy: was there nationalism in the Balkans of the early nineteenth century?" International Journal of Comparative Sociology 24:l-2 (1983), 30-46.
--"The social and historical landscape of Marc Bloch," in Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Theda Skocpol, ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 22-46.
--Charles Ragin and Daniel Chirot, "Immanuel Wallerstein's world system: sociology and politics as history," in Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Theda Skocpol, ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 276-312.
--"The Rise of the West," American Sociological Review 50:2 (1985), 181-195.
--"Romania: Ceausescu's Last Folly," Dissent (Summer, 1988), 271-275.
--"Ideology, Reality, and Competing Models of Development in Eastern Europe Between the Two World Wars," Eastern European Politics and Societies 3:3 (1989), 378-411.
--"What Happened in Eastern Europe in 1989?" in The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989. Daniel Chirot, ed., (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), pp. 3-32.
--"After Socialism, What?" Contention 1:1 (Fall, 1991), 29-49.
--Liah Greenfeld and Daniel Chirot, "Nationalism and Aggression," Theory and Society 9 (1994), 79-130.
--"Modernism Without Liberalism: The Ideological Roots of Modern Tyranny," Contention 5:1 (Fall, 1995), 141-166.
--"Herder's Multicultural Theory of Nationalism and Its Consequences," East European Politics and Societies 10:1 (Winter, 1996), 1-15.
--“Conflicting Identities and the Dangers of Communalism,” in Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid, eds., Essential Outsiders, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), pp. 3-32.
--“Is Civility Enough? Comparing Romania and the American South,” in Robert Hefner, ed., Democratic Civility (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998), pp. 175-202.
--“A Clash of Civilizations or of Paradigms? Theorizing Progress and Social Change,” International Sociology 16:3 (September, 2001), 341-360.
--With Jennifer Edwards, “Making Sense of the Senseless: Understanding Genocide,” Contexts 2:2 (Spring 2003), 12-19.
--“What Provokes Violent Ethnic Conflict? Political Choice in One African and Two Balkan Cases,” in Zoltan Barany and Robert Moser, eds., Ethnic Conflict in Post-Communist Societies, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 140-165.
--“Postcolonial African and Middle Eastern Tyrannies: Combining the Worst of the Classical and Modern Traditions,” in Toivo Koivukoski and David Tabachnick, eds., Confronting Tyranny: Ancient Lessons for Global Politics, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 81-102.
--“The Debacle in Côte d’Ivoire,” Journal of Democracy, 17:2 (April 2006), 63-77.
--“Returning to a Sane Foreign Policy.” Society, 45:5 (September/October 2008), 425-428.
--“The Retribalization of the Modern World: How the Revival of Ancient Sentiments Leads to Persisting Nationalist and Ethnic Conflicts,” Ab Imperio (3: 2008), 23-46.
--“Does Democracy Work in Deeply Divided Societies?” in Zoltan Barany and Robert Moser, eds., Exporting Democracy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). pp. 85-109.
--“Is a Rational Solution Possible?” Society 47:2 (March/April 2010) [In the issue Symposium: Breaking the Immigration Deadlock.], 107-109.
--“A Turning Point or Business as Usual?” in Craig Calhoun and Georgi Derlugian, eds., Possible Futures [on the current economic crisis and its possible outcomes], (New York: New York University Press, forthcoming 2011).
--“Europe’s Troubled World War II Memories: Are They That Different?” in Gi-Wook Shin and Dan Sneider, eds., History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia (New York: Routledge, forthcoming. 2011).