Dr. Kevin O'Leary

Kevin C. O’Leary (Ph.D., Yale University) teaches American politics, political theory, and the history of ideas and has been a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine since 2002. His courses include Paine, Burke and Modern Political Argument, Democratic Theory, and Revolution and Philosophy. He also teaches in the Freshman Foundations Course (FFC) program and the Honors Program.

He is the author of Madison’s Sorrow: Today’s War on the Founders and America’s Liberal Ideal (Pegasus Books, 2020). Tracking liberalism and illiberalism across American history, the book tells the story of the political revolution that has transformed the Republican Party and unleashed an illiberal crusade against the Founding Fathers. Madison’s Sorrow has been praised by Erwin Chemerinsky, Alan Wolfe, Norman Ornstein, Kevin Mattson, and Robert Kuttner. The Booklist (starred review) says “Essential reading.”

His first book, Saving Democracy: A Plan for Real Representation in America (Stanford University Press, 2006), shows how we can improve democracy in America by instituting citizen assemblies in congressional districts across the nation. Saving Democracy received praise from Jane Mansbridge, Joshua Cohen, David Mayhew, James Fallows, and E.J. Dionne Jr. and was a finalist for American Political Science Association’s 2007 Michael Harrington Award for “an outstanding book that demonstrates how scholarship can be used in the struggle for a better world.” The book was reviewed in Political Theory and Perspectives on Politics.

A contributor to The American Prospect, O’Leary was the lead West Coast reporter for TIME, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, editorial page editor of the Pasadena Star-News, editor of OC Metro magazine, and national correspondent for Campaigns & Elections. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UCLA, Kevin was a Coro Fellow in Los Angeles. He previously taught at UCLA and the Claremont Colleges.