Gar Alperovitz, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, is a Founding Principal of The Democracy Collaborative. He is a former Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard and King's College of Cambridge University. He has served as a Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. Earlier he was President of the Center for Community Economic Development, Co-Director of The Cambridge Institute, and President of the Center for the Study of Public Policy. Dr. Alperovitz's numerous articles have appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Journal of Economic Issues, Foreign Policy, Diplomatic History, and other academic and popular journals. Dr. Alperovitz is also author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, published in 1995, and the 2002 book, Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio).