Contact David Patton
Education: B.A., Swarthmore College; M.A., Ph.D., Cornell University
Professor of Government
Government Department Chair
Joined Connecticut College: 1993
Specialization:
- Comparative politics
- European politics
- European Union
- Federal Republic of Germany
David F. Patton is a professor of government and chair of the government department at Connecticut College.
He teaches classes on comparative politics, European integration, ethnic conflict, and European politics.
In his research, he has focused on the domestic bases of German foreign policy, German unification, political regionalism, and German elections. His work includes Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999) which explores the relationship between shifts in the Cold War and the emergence of new social coalitions and chancellor democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Patton has also written extensively on Germany’s Party of Democratic Socialism/Left Party. He is currently working on a co-authored book project on the role of small parties in the German party system.
In fall 1999, Patton was a visiting scholar at the Minda De Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. In 2000, he was a visiting researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.
Patton taught and co-directed Connecticut College’s SATA (Study Away, Teach Away) program in Hanoi, Vietnam for the spring semester 2003.
He is currently serving on the executive board of the German Studies Association.
View the government department Web site.