Thomas De Luca

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
PhD, Political Science

Tom De Luca is the Director of the International Studies Program and the Sino-American Seminar on Politics and Law. His main interest is the theory and practice of democracy, in the U.S. and abroad.

De Luca specializes in American politics, democratic theory and practice, and civil and political rights. Since teaching in China from 1999-2000 he has become interested in Chinese politics and society and in comparative democratization, and since 9/11 the threat of terrorism.

Professor De Luca served as the 2005-6 Thomas Jefferson Distinguished Fulbright Chair in American Social Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

De Luca is a media commentator on U.S. politics and democracy, and U.S.-China relations, with appearances on CBS TV, NBC Nightly News, Reuters TV, KCBS-San Francisco, Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, CBS Up-to-the-Minute, Fox, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The O’Reilly Factor, CCTV (China), KNX-Los Angeles, and other media including television, radio, and print. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Newsday, Baltimore Sun, Orange County Register, Orlando Sentinel, New York Newsday, American Demographics, The Beijing Daily and other outlets.

He travels widely and took a three day trip to North Korea in October 2005.

His most recent book is Liars! Cheaters! Evildoers! Demonization and the End of Civil Debate in American Politics (NYU, 2005, with John Buell).

He is also the author of Sustainable Democracy: Individuality and the Politics of the Environment (SAGE Publications, 1996, with John Buell), and the author of The Two Faces of Political Apathy (Temple University Press, 1995).