Dr Narcís Serra
Narcís Serra has been the Chairman of the Board of CIDOB, since 2000. During this time, he has been the driving force behind the creation of the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI), which was founded with the desire to turn Barcelona into a centre of reference in the study of this discipline.
Narcís Serra has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Barcelona, where he held the position of Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics. Between 1970 and 1972, he studied Monetary Economics as a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. In 1973, he obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and, three years later, in 1976, he obtained a post of Professor in Economic Theory, first at the University of Seville and then at the UAB.
Following this university experience, in 1977 he was appointed Catalan Minister of Town and Country Planning and Public Works in the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya chaired by Josep Tarradellas, and in April 1979, he was elected Mayor of Barcelona. In 1982, he was appointed Spanish Minister of Defence in the Government of Felipe González, and in 1991, Vice President of the Spanish Government. From 1986 until 2004, Narcís Serra was member of the Spanish Parliament representing the province of Barcelona.
His main areas of interest are the development of foreign policy, the relationship between the Armed Forces and civil society and the global governance mechanisms, especially in the field of security. Recently, he has published “The Military Transition” (Debate, 2008 in Spanish; Cambridge University Press, 2010, in English) and, together with Joseph Stiglitz, “The Washington Consensus Reconsidered” (Oxford University Press, 2008).