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wh y w e l o s t
Grigorij Mesežnikov
is President of the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) in Bratislava,
Slovakia. Previously, he served at Comenius University in Bratislava and at the Political
Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He is a founding member of the In-
stitute for Public Affairs (IVO), which he joined full-time in June 1997. He has co-edited
and co-authored a number of books, including the
Slovakia
:
Global Report
, an annual,
comprehensive analysis of country’s development in all relevant sectors of society, and
Freedom House’s
Nations in Transit
.
Jan Erik Surotchak
is Resident Director for Europe at the International Republican Insti-
tute, based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Prior to re-joining IRI in 2003, he served in Bratislava
for two as director of a FreedomHouse NGO voter-mobilization support program and for
five years as director of the Foundation for a Civil Society’s Democracy Network public
policy project. Surotchak opened IRI’s office in Slovakia in 1994. He holds a Master of Arts
in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Peter Učeň
studied political science in Bratislava, Budapest and Florence. He specializes
in theory of parties and party systems, democratization and populism. He works in the
area of democracy promotion and building democratic institutions, and is Assistant Pro-
gram Officer for the International Republican Institute’s Regional Program for Central
and Eastern Europe in Bratislava, Slovakia.