Lavinia Stan

Lavinia Stan (born 1966) is a professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada, known for her work on post-communist democratization. She is a prominent figure in transitional justice scholarship, religion and politics, as well as democratization studies.

Education and career After obtaining a degree from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, she emigrated to Canada in 1991. Stan then earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto. Stan is a Professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. In November 2024, she was appointed European Research Area (ERA) Chair at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania.

From 2010 to 2019, she served as Vice-President and subsequently President of the Society for Romanian Studies, during which time the society introduced two publication initiatives: a book series sponsored jointly with the Romanian publisher Polirom, and the peer-reviewed Journal of Romanian Studies. She has been Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Women's Studies International Forum, published by Elsevier, and in December 2023 was appointed Editor of East European Politics and Societies. Stan has also acted as an expert witness in cases concerning deportation, asylum, property restitution, and corruption in American and British courts. She serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

Publications Stan's research has focused on three main areas: transitional justice, religion and politics, and democratization. Her work has received funding from institutions including Horizon Europe, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Brian Mulroney Institute of Governance, the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security of the European Commission, amounting to over 3 million Euros.

In her studies of religion and politics in post-communist Romania, Stan has examined the role of the Orthodox Church in democratic consolidation. She has also researched the Church's collaboration with the communist-era secret police, the Securitate, as well as disputes over the restitution of property from the Orthodox Church to the Greek Catholic Church. Her work on transitional justice in post-communist countries has highlighted the role of civil society actors, including individual political figures, in advancing reckoning processes where state actors have been unwilling to do so.

She has authored, co-authored or edited the following volumes:

Transitional justice Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice. Cambridge University Press, 2023, second edition. . Co-edited with Nadya Nedelsky. Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking toward the Future. Cambridge University Press, 2018. . Co-edited with Cynthia M. Horne. Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Lessons from Twenty-Five Years of Experience. Cambridge University Press, 2015. . Co-edited with Nadya Nedelsky. Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice. Cambridge University Press, 2013, first edition. . Co-edited with Nadya Nedelsky. Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory. Cambridge University Press, 2013. . Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the Communist Past. Routledge, 2009. . Romanian translation: Prezentul trecutului recent: Lustrație și decomunizare în postcomunism. Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2010. .

Religion and politics Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism. Springer, 2021. . Co-edited with L. Turcescu. Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. . Co-edited with L. Turcescu. Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights. Cambridge Scholars, 2017. . Co-edited with L. Turcescu. Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe. Oxford University Press, 2011. . Co-authored with L. Turcescu. Religion and Politics in Post-communist Romania. Oxford University Press, 2007. . Romanian translation: Religie si politica in Romania postcomunista. Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2010. . Co-authored with L. Turcescu.

Democratization East Central Europe since 1989: Politics, Culture, and Society. Routledge, 2024. . Co-authored with Sabrina P. Ramet. Post-Communist Progress and Stagnation at 35: The Case of Romania. Springer, 2024. . Co-edited with Diane Vancea. Post-Communist Romania at 25: Civic and Uncivic Values and Institutions. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. . Co-edited with Diane Vancea. 1989–2009: Incredibila aventura a democratiei dupa comunism (interviews with Western and Romanian specialists on Eastern Europe on the occasion of 20 years since the collapse of communism). Iași, Romania: Editura Institutul European, 2010. . Leaders and Laggards: Governance, Civicness and Ethnicity in Post-Communist Romania. Columbia University Press, 2003. . Romania in Transition. Dartmouth College Press, 1997. .

Translations into Romanian In addition, Stan translated two volumes into Romanian: Étienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, trans. from French with Sabina Elena Stan. Bucharest: Universal Dalsi Press, 1994. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, trans. with Lucian Turcescu, Bucharest: Universal Dalsi Press, 1995.

Annual reports on Moldova and Romania From 1997 to 2003 she published the quarterly report on the Republic of Moldova in East European Constitutional Review, while since 2006 she has co-authored the annual report regarding political developments in Romania for European Journal of Political Research.