Donald L. Horowitz

Donald L. Horowitz (born 1939) is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Law and Political Science at Duke Law School and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States.

He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1968 and also holds degrees from Syracuse University. He is a specialist in the study of ethnic conflict and author of the books Ethnic Groups in Conflict (University of California Press, 1985),{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/10/books/ties-of-blood-rivers-of-blood.html|first=Arend|last=Lijphart|title=Ties of blood, rivers of blood|work=New York Times|date=10 November 1985|accessdate=17 March 2016}} A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (University of California Press, 1991), The Deadly Ethnic Riot (University of California Press, 2001) and Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia (Cambridge University Press, 2013).{{cite news|url=https://law.duke.edu/news/horowitz-examines-indonesia-s-transition-democracy-new-book/|title=Horowitz examines Indonesia's transition to democracy in new book|publisher=Duke Law School|date=10 January 2013|accessdate=17 March 2016}} Writing about Ethnic Groups in Conflict, political scientist Ashutosh Varshney states that it "was a seminal text", and that: "For the first time in scholarly history, a book on ethnic conflict covered a whole variety of topics, ranging from concepts and definitions to those spheres of institutional politics (party politics, military politics, affirmative action) in which the power of ethnicity had become obvious and could no longer be ignored".{{cite book|first=Ashutosh|last=Varshney|chapter=Ethnicity and ethnic conflict|editor-link1=Carles Boix|editor-first1=Carles|editor-last1=Boix|editor-link2=Susan Stokes|editor-first2=Susan C.|editor-last2=Stokes|title=The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics|year=2007|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199278480|pages=274–294}}

Horowitz has acted as a consultant on the problems of divided societies and on policies to reduce ethnic conflict in locations including Russia, Romania, Nigeria, Tatarstan and Northern Ireland. In 2006, he was appointed to Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion.{{cite news|url=http://www.law.duke.edu/features/2006/horowitzappt|title=Professor Donald Horowitz appointed to Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion|publisher=Duke Law School|accessdate=17 March 2016}}