Jacques Lévesque

Jacques Lévesque     (academic)
Born	2 October 1940
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Montreal, Sciences Po
Interests	• USSR • Russia
French-speaking Canadian Sovietologist who attended the 1981 Bilderberg  Professor In office 1969 - Present Employer University of Quebec in Montreal  Research Fellow at the Russian Research Center In office 1972 - 1973 Employer Harvard University  Senior Fellow at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs In office 1969 - 1972 Employer Columbia University

Jacques Lévesque is Canadian academic who specialized in the Soviet Union and Russia.

He participated in the 1981 Bilderberg meeting where his research area would have been relevant for the discussion topic What Should Western Policy Be Toward the Soviet Union in the 1980's?

Background

Jacques Lévesque was born in 1940 in Saint-Félicien, Lac-Saint-Jean, Québec. After a master's degree in political science from the University of Montreal, he obtained a doctorate from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris in 1968.

Career

Jacques Lévesque founded, in particular, the Center for Foreign and Security Policy Studies (CEPES) at the University of Quebec in Montreal, which he headed during his first three years (1969-1972).

From June 1972 to September 1973, he was invited as a researcher in residence at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. He also stayed at Berkeley, from 1985 to 1987, as a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science. In 1989, he became director of CEPES, and he was elected dean of the Faculty of Political science and law of University of Quebec in Montreal in 1999. He retired in 2005.

Since the beginning of his career, Lévesque has been one of the most prominent Western specialists on the communist world. His books on the Sino-Soviet conflict or the relations between the USSR and the Cuban revolution were followed by several works published by prestigious European publishing houses and translated, among others, into Polish and Hungarian. He also co-edited works that deal with both the Sino-Soviet conflicts and the relations of the communist world with NATO.

Jacques Lévesque's expertise has often been solicited by political decision-makers. He was a member of the Canadian delegation to the Joint Canadian-Soviet Commission for General Exchanges (1972-1973), special advisor to the Canadian Embassy to the United Nations (1984,1988) and invited expert advisor to the Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada in the 80s. An excellent popularizer, his opinions were also solicited many times by the corporate media.

Books

He is the author of many books, including L’URSS et sa politique internationale depuis 1917 (Armand Colin, 1980), L’URSS et sa politique internationale, de Lénine à Gorbatchev (1988), The USSR and the Cuban Revolution: Soviet Ideological and Strategical Prespectives (1977), La fin d’un empire: L’URSS et la libération de l’Europe de l’Est (1995), L’URSS en Afghanistan – 1979-1989 (1991).

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1981	15 May 1981	17 May 1981	Switzerland Palace Hotel Bürgenstock	The 29th Bilderberg

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