Constantinos Tsoukalas was born in Athens in 1937. After completing his undergraduate studies at the Law School of the University of Athens he undertook postgraduate studies on Philosophy of Law and Sociology at the Universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Paris and at Yale University. In 1974 he was proclaimed Doctor of Literature and Humanities at the University of Paris. From 1968 until 1991 he was an active lawyer in Athens. He worked as a researcher at the Athens Centre for Social Research (1963-1967) and at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (1968). From 1968 to 1995 he was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris and since 1985 he is a Professor of Sociology at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Athens. In parallel, from 1981 until 1989, he served as a scientific director at the National Centre for Social Research. In 1993, he was appointed President of the National Centre for Social Research, position he maintained until 1995. He has been President of the Hellenic Sociological Association, member of the Supreme Council for Research and Technology, visiting professor at the Universities of Paris, Princeton, New York University, Mexico City, and at the Department of Economics of the University of Athens. From 1994 until 1996 he was leader of the Greek delegation at the UN Summit for Social Development and member of the Executive Board of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture. Today he is President of the Executive Board of the National Museum of Modern Art, member of the Executive Board of the Cultural Olympiad, member of the National Committee for Bioethics and member of the Scientific Council of the Lausanne Olympic Museum.
He has published multiple articles and books, indicatively:
• The Greek Tragedy, 1968
• Dependence and Reproduction: The social role of education in Greece, 1976
• State and Social Development. The establishment of the public sector in Greece, 1980
• State, employment and society in post-war Greece, 1985
• Cultural Reflections. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity in the modern state, 1991
• A journey through Reason and History, 1996
• Semantics Adventures: The power of the “people” and the power of a “nation”, 1999
• War, memories and art, 2000
• Politics Today: Nikos Poulantzas and the currency of his work, 2001
• In relation to knowledge, 2002
• War and Peace, 2006
• Inventing the alternative, 2010
