Benjamin R. Barber is the Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, and director, CivWorld. Among his 17 books are the classic Strong Democracy (1984), reissued in 2004 in a twentieth anniversary edition; the recent international best-seller Jihad vs. McWorld (1995, with a Post 9/11 Edition in 2001, translated into 20 languages), and Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism and Democracy (2003), also published in eight foreign editions.

Mark Cassell is associate professor of political science at Kent State University. His recent book, How Governments Privatize: The Politics of Divestment in the United States and Germany (2002), won the Charles H. Levine Award from International Political Science Association for the best book in public policy and administration published in 2002.

Christine Ingebritsen is associate professor in the department of Scandinavian studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of The Nordic States and European Unity (1998) and co-editor of Globalization, Europeanization, and the End of Scandinavian Social Democracy? (2000) and Small States in International Relations (2006).

Steven L. Lamy is professor of international relations and director, Teaching International Relations, at the University of Southern California. His books include Contemporary International Issues: Contending Perspectives (1988) and International Relations for the Twenty-First Century: A Rough Guide for Participants in Global Communities (forthcoming). He has also authored several book chapters, including, most recently, a case study on the Dutch in Srebrenica and a chapter on the G-8 and Human Security Issues.

Isis I. Leslie recently completed her Ph.D. in political theory at Rutgers University and has been a visiting scholar at the American Political Science Association's Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs. She is currently working on a research project entitled, “The Vicissitudes of Romanticism in America.” She is teaching this spring at Georgetown University.

Pamela L. Martin is assistant professor of politics and international relations at Coastal Carolina University. She is also the director of the International and Global Studies Minor, as well as co-advisor to the Globalist Club, which has members from both South Carolina and Ecuador. Her most recent book, The Globalization of Contentious Politics: The Amazonian Indigenous Rights Movement (2003), analyzes the benefits and challenges of global processes on indigenous peoples in some of the planet's most remote areas.

Deborah E. Ward is assistant professor of political science at Seton Hall University. Her areas of specialization include American Politics, Urban Policy and Development, Welfare Policy and Welfare State Development, and the Politics of Race and Ethnicity. She is the author of The White Welfare State: The Racialization of U.S. Welfare Policy (2005).