Fernando Vallespin Oña is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he has spent almost his entire academic career and held posts such as Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Head of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Political Theory at the university. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Harvard, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Veracruz and Malaysia. He has published more than a dozen books and well over a hundred academic articles and book chapters on political science and political theory in Spanish and international journals, with a particular focus on contemporary political theory. He has served as President of the Centre for Sociological Research and Director of the Ortega y Gasset Research Institute. He is a full member of the Royal Academy of Political and Moral Sciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of the *Revista de Occidente*. He also contributes regularly to the Spanish media, such as the daily newspaper *El País*.