Sidney Plotkin is professor of political science and Margaret Stiles Halleck Chair of Social Sciences at Vassar College, USA. He received his PhD in political science from City University of New York. Plotkin has written extensively on issues of land use, political power and community action, resulting in numerous articles and two books, Keep Out: The Struggle for Land Use Control (1987) and Private Interest, Public Spending (1994). More recently, his attention has turned to the work of Thorstein Veblen, about whom he has published many articles, and, with Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (2011). Plotkin has served as president of the International Thorstein Veblen Association.