Bernd Reiter

Bernd Reiter is a political scientist and professor at Texas Tech University. He formerly served as the Director of the Institute for The Study of Latin American and the Caribbean (ISLAC) and professor of political science for the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of South Florida. His research focuses on democracy, race and decolonization. Reiter is a decolonization scholar and has collaborated with such authors as Arturo Escobar (anthropologist), Sandra Harding, Raewyn Connell, Catherine Walsh, Gustavo Esteva, Walter Mignolo, and Aram Ziai. He has also made contributions to Critical Whiteness Studies. In 2017, he gave a TEDx talk on The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead .
Background.
Reiter earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from The City University of New York in Comparative Politics. He earned his BA and MA at the University of Hamburg, Germany, in sociology, Latin American studies, and anthropology. During his time at The City University of New York, Reiter was a research associate (1999-2002) and a senior research associate (2004-2005) at the Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center at Graduate Center, CUNY.
Academic, Activist, & Professional Career.
Since 2005, he has worked at the University of South Florida, as an assistant professor (2005–2011), associate professor (2011–2016), and full professor (since 2016). Reiter was born in Germany, where he was involved with the Fair Trade Movement, the Peace Movement, and the Anti WAA Movement.
He conducted peace service, in lieu of military service, in Colombia, working with abandoned children in Ibague, Tolima (1989) and with rural black youth in Condoto, Choco (1990)
Reiter studied, lived, and worked from 1992 to 1998 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, first attending the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and later working as a social worker and consultant for several local and international NGOs. He co-coordinated the effort by Bahian musician Carlinhos Brown to urbanize the neighborhood of Candeal Pequeno. This project led to the foundation of the Pracatum School and the urbanization of the neighborhood through the Ta Rebocado Project. Reiter was primarily responsible for the active involvement of the local population in the planning and monitoring of the urbanization project, fundraising, and general management of the Pracatum School and the Ta Reboca Project. Both Pracatum and Ta Rebocado won several international awards and became the theme of the movie The Miracle of Candeal (El Milagro del Candeal), by Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba.
Reiter has conducted research on citizenship and democracy, nationalism, exclusion, racism, school reform, and microfinance in Brazil, Colombia, Portugal, Germany, France, and Ghana. His articles have appeared in Anarchist Studies, Journal of Civil Society, Journal of International Development, Journal of Developing Societies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Latin American Perspectives, Citizenship Studies, Race & Class, among others. His books explore The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead (2017), The Dialectics of Citizenship (2013), and Negotiating Democracy in Brazil (2008).
He has co-written, edited and co-edited several books on such topics as decolonization, bridging scholarship and activism, racial politics in Brazil and development.
Awards, Grants, & Recognition.
Throughout his academic career, Reiter has received several research grants from the Spencer Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, supporting his research on democracy, citizenship, participation, racism, exclusion, and school reform in Brazil.
Published Books.
The following is a partial list of publications.