Dennis Thompson

Office Address
Non Resident
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
79 JFK Street
Contact
Email: Dennis_Thompson@hks.harvard.edu
Dennis Thompson

Profile

Dennis F. Thompson, Professor of Public Policy, is also the Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy in the Government Department in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and founding Director of Harvard's university-wide ethics program, now the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. His books include: Just Elections: Creating a Fair Electoral Process in the United States; Restoring Responsibility: Ethics in Government, Business and Healthcare;Political Ethics and Public Office; and Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption. He is also the author (jointly with Amy Gutmann) of The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It; Why Deliberative Democracy? and Democracy & Disagreement. Professor Thompson has served as a consultant to the Joint Ethics Committee of the South African Parliament, the American Medical Association, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the Department of Health and Human Services. He received his BA in philosophy summa cum laude from the College of William and Mary; took first-class honors in philosophy, politics, and economics at Balliol College, Oxford; and holds a PhD in political science from Harvard.

Media Expertise

Dennis Thompson welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

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Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journal/Scholarly Articles
    • Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis F. Thompson. "Valuing Compromise for the Common Good." Daedalus 142.2 (Spring 2013): 185-198.
  • Book Chapters
    • Fung, Archon, Jane Mansbridge, and Dennis F. Thompson. "A Systemic Approach to Deliberative Democracy." Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale. Ed. Parkinson, John, and Jane Mansbridge. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  • Magazine and Newspaper Articles
    • Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. "The Case for Compromise." Harvard Magazine. July 1, 2012.