Nadia Urbinati received a Ph.D at the European University Institute in Florence. She is a political theorist who specializes in modern and contemporary political thought and the democratic and anti-democratic traditions. She co-chaired the Columbia University Faculty Seminar on Political and Social Thought and founded and chaired the Workshop on Politics, Religion and Human Rights. She is co-editor with Andrew Arato of the journal Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Foundation Reset Dialogues on Civilization-Istanbul Seminars. She is the winner of the 2008-9 Lenfest/Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award. In 2008 the President of the Italian Republic awarded Professor Urbinati the Commendatore della Repubblica (Commander of the Italian Republic) "for her contribution to the study of democracy and the diffusion of Italian liberal and democratic thought abroad." In 2004 her book Mill on Democracy (cited below) received the David and Elaine Spitz Prize as the best book in liberal and democratic theory published in 2002.
Publications
Carlo Rosselli, Liberal Socialism, Princeton University Press, 1994Piero Gobetti, On Liberal Revolution, Yale University Press, 2000
Mill on Democracy: From the Athenian Polis to Representative Government, University of Chicago Press, 2002
Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy, University of Chicago Press, 2006
Ai confini della democrazia: opportunità e rischi dell'universalismo democratico, Donzelli, 2007