James V. Riker

Dr. James V. Riker "is Director of the Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program at the University of Maryland and a board member for the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID). He is Coordinator of the Democratic Governance and Parliamentary Oversight (DGPO) Project and for the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition as well as a member and rapporteur for its High Level Panel on IMF Board Accountability. His lengthy career has included positions such as Associate Director of Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, Associate Director for the Global Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Vice-Chair and Co-founding member and then Chair of the Global Development Section of The International Studies Association (ISA). He also served as a faculty advisor for the student group, Terps for Global Solutions (UMD campus group of Citizens for Global Solutions) in 2004-2005. Dr. Riker earned a B.A. from Pomona College in Environmental Policy, a M.A. in Government and a Ph.D. in Government: Comparative Politics, International Relations, Southeast Asian Studies, and International Agriculture & Rural Development from Cornell University.

"Dr. Riker has interest and expertise in reassessing responsibilities and reinvigorating U.S. leadership on global priorities, assessing the impact of the Global War on Terror and the prospects for a new human security agenda in Southeast Asia, re-envisioning human security and strategies for eradicating hunger and poverty as well as the global politics of environmentally sustainable development. He also expresses interest in strategies for securing human rights and democracy at the regional and global levels and strategies for enhancing United Nations-Civil Society relations. He supports civil society advocacy for democratic accountability of the international financial institutions. He is interested in serious discussion on building the institutional bases for global democracy in the transition from a U.S. hegemonic world, and on effective participatory and collaborative governance approaches to poverty alleviation and food security.

"Dr. Riker is the author of Promising Visions and Strategies to Advancing Global Democracy and co-editor of Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms and Government-NGO Relations in Asia: Prospects and Challenges for People-Centered Development. He is editor of A Program to End Hunger: Hunger 2000, and The Changing Politics of Hunger: Hunger 1999."

He "is a political scientist whose research focuses broadly on the dynamics of transnational civil society, democratization, globalization, and state-civil society relations in the developing world with particular emphasis on Southeast Asia. He currently co-directs the Collaborative’s national study of civic engagement and democratic citizenship in the United States.

"Jim is co-editor of Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movement, Networks, and Norms (with Sanjeev Khagram and Kathryn Sikkink; University of Minnesota Press, 2002); the editor of Hunger 2000: A Program to End Hunger (Bread for the World Institute, 2000), and co-editor of Government-NGO Relations in Asia: Prospects and Challenges for People-Centred Development (with Noeleen Heyzer and Antonio B. Quizon; MacMillan, 1995). He is co-founder and former chair of the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association (ISA) and was a Fulbright-Hays Fellow to Indonesia. He received his Ph.D. in government from Cornell University."


 * Fellow, World Federalist Institute
 * Member, New Rules for Global Finance Coalition