Jon Elster Norway, 1940
Philosopher and social scientist, Elster did his training in Norway and Paris, where he earned his doctorate at the Sorbonne University, with a thesis on Leibniz directed by Raymond Aron. He also studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He has taught, among other universities in Paris, Oslo and Chicago. In 2005 he was elected to the Collège de France. He is currently Robert K. Merton Professor of Social Sciences majoring in political science and philosophy at the University of Columbia. Elster has focused his work on the theory of rational choice, the theory of distributive justice and the history of social thought in Marx and Tocqueville -mainly. Currently, his research focuses on the study of retroactive and transitional justice in countries that recently emerged from totalitarian or authoritarian regimes.