Michael Haas (political scientist)

Haas received his cum laude baccalaureate degree at Stanford University in 1959. Yale University awarded him a master's degree in 1960. He received his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1964. All degrees were in political science.

Under the direction of his thesis adviser, Robert C. North, his Ph.D. dissertation, Some Societal Correlates of International Political Behavior demonstrated that countries go to war after serious unemployment results in increased suicide. During his last year of work on his doctoral degree, he taught temporarily at San Jose State University from 1963 to 1964. He then accepted a permanent position at the University of Hawai`i’s main campus in Manoa Valley, Honolulu, where he rose from Assistant Professor to Professor from 1964 to 1971 and remained until 1998.

While on the faculty in Honolulu, he also held temporary positions at Northwestern University, Purdue University, the University of California (Riverside), San Francisco State University, the University of the Philippines, and the University of London.

His research appointments include a United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) consultancy at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok during 1971 and a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies on the University of Singapore campus in 1987.

In 1998, for family reasons, he opted for early retirement and returned to Los Angeles. During the next decade, he held temporary positions at Loyola Marymount University, California State University, Fullerton, California State University, Los Angeles, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Rio Hondo College, College of the Canyons, and Occidental College. In December 2008, he resigned from his latest teaching position to complete George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Liability of the Bush Administration for 269 War Crimes (2009).[1]

While in Los Angeles, he incorporated the Political Film Society, which he founded while in Honolulu during 1986.[2] He is president of the Political Film Society, which nominates and gives awards to the best political films each year. Winners receive the most from voting by the membership of the Political Film Society.