M.A. in Politics (Central European University, Hungary) and PhD. in Political Science (Rutgers University). He was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (Washington D.C.) and visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (Stanford University). He authored ‘Postponed Freedom: Post-Communist Authoritarianism in Serbia and Belarus’ (2002) and coauthored Historical Dictionary of Belarus (2007). He was also the author of over 100 articles published in Belarus, USA, EU, and Russia.
Vitali specialized in democratization and authoritarianism in the former USSR, electoral revolutions, politics of economic reforms, EU relations with Belarus, Belarus-Russia integration, etc.
In the academia, he is known for the conception of preemptive authoritarianism.
Vitali Silitski untimely passed away on June 11, 2011, at the age of 39.
To learn more about Vitali and his intellectual heritage, please visit the site Vital Silitsky: in memoriam.