Bill entered academic life through an exceptionally difficult path. Born in Dresden in 1930 as the son of a rabbi, he grew up in the toxic atmosphere of Nazi Germany. His family was relocated to the Riga ghetto in 1942, and from there to concentration camps in Riga and Gdansk, where the family members were separated; Bill lost both his father and his brother in early 1945. He was reunited with his mother and his sister after the war, and these surviving family members migrated to New York.

Following a compressed secondary education, Bill undertook university studies in New York, where he completed his PhD at Columbia University (1964). He moved to the University of Colorado at Boulder the following year to take up an assistant professorship, and he served as a professor there for the rest of his career. He remained academically active well after his retirement in 2003.

For much of his academic career, Bill was known to students for his work on comparative European politics. Among many other publications in this area, he was author of a standard text on French politics, The French Polity, first published in 1977 but reaching its seventh edition more than three decades later (Pearson-Longman, 2009). He was also co-author of a popular text in comparative politics, Politics in Europe, which first appeared in 1993 and also ran through many editions (sixth ed., Sage/Congressional Quarterly Press, 2015).

Bill was best known to his IPSA colleagues, however, for his work on nationalism and ethnic conflict, and in particular for his publications in the niche area of diaspora studies (a distinctive subfield on which he left his mark). He was a very active member of one of IPSA’s earliest Research Committees, RC14 Politics and Ethnicity, founded in 1976. Bill joined its executive board in 1988, and served in various capacities for the next 24 years, including periods as vice-chair and editor of the Research Committee's newsletter (1988-94), as chair (1994-2000) and as treasurer (2000-12). He contributed enthusiastically to the round table meetings and World Congress panels organised by the Research Committee.

Bill's most enduring contribution to the infrastructure of the discipline was the journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (first published by Frank Cass, now Taylor and Francis). Bill was the primary mover in shaping the initial character of the journal, of which he served as editor for its first 16 years (1995-2010). He was also founding editor of the associated book series, Routledge Studies in Nationalism and Ethnicity.

There has been no shortage of tributes to Bill Safran's contribution to global political science, and especially to nationalism studies. His influence was extended through his role as visiting scholar in a range of institutions, his many invited keynote addresses and distinguished visitor lectures, Who's Who entries of various kinds and recognition by international programmes such as Fulbright.

Fittingly, Bill's colleagues came together in New Orleans in 2010 at the annual conference of the International Studies Association with a set of roundtable meetings entitled 'Reflections on the scholarship of William Safran'. This was the core of a fuller set of papers by leading scholars in ethnic politics in a festschrift edited by Michelle Williams, entitled The Multicultural Dilemma: Migration, Ethnic Politics and State Intermediation (Routledge, 2013) – an appropriate tribute to the work of a much-loved colleague.

Text written by John Coakley

A memorial note written by Adrian Guelke has also recently been published in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2026.2679343).

We hope to catch up with some of you for the IPSA Research Committees Colloquium in Bolzano at the end of this month, where we're sure there will be conversations about Bill's legacy and his contribution to our discipline.