| Leonard Suransky | |
| Birth Date: | 2 December 1942 |
| Birth Place: | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Nationality: | South African |
| Alma Mater: | University of Michigan |
| Occupation: | Department Head |
| Children: | Shael Polakow-Suransky, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Sarafina Suransky & Sonya Suransky |
Leonard Suransky (born 2 December 1942) is a South African doctor of International Relations and Education, and is the former Head of the Department of International Relations at Webster University in Leiden, Netherlands. Subsequently, he headed the IR department of Webster University in Accra, Ghana from 2014 to 2019, and still taught there by Zoom in 2022. He is currently the co-chair of the University of the Third Age (U3a) in Cape Town, and the Chair of the Camps Bay U3a branch.
Suransky was born and raised in South Africa. He has a BA from Hebrew University Jerusalem, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He specializes in designing and administering International Relations games and simulations in the academic, public and corporate sectors. His son Shael Polakow-Suransky is the president of Bank Street College of Education. His second son Sasha Polakow-Suransky is an Associate Editor of 'Foreign Policy' in London. His daughter Sarafina is a psychologist in the Netherlands, specialising in Schema Therapy at a Viersprong clinic. Sonya works for the high-tech employment agency SALT in Cape Town. He is Jewish, and was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa before he emigrated to the USA in 1973, then lived for 11 years in the Netherlands, and has been living in Cape Town, South Africa since 2011.
His current research interests include transitions to democracy in Africa, development issues and poverty alleviation, identity politics, and conflict and crisis management in the Greater Middle East and Southern Africa. More recently, he has taught about China's role in Africa, the old and new Silk Roads, xenophobia, corruption, populism, and the Russia-Ukraine war and its implications for the current world order.
In his Ann Arbor years, he was awarded the Outstanding Lecturer award for his work in the Arab-Israeli Conflict course, with the simulation exercise he developed. He received the Des Lee Visiting Lectureship in Global Awareness at Webster University. Upon winning the Des Lee Visiting Lectureship in Global Awareness, Suransky stated "When I first saw the words ‘global awareness’ in the title of the award, I immediately thought ‘that’s not enough.’ After finding out about a problem intellectually, how does one get to feel something about it? That involves empathy and compassion. This could involve taking some personal risk, perhaps even exposing oneself to some danger. So, in a nutshell, how do we move from understanding (becoming globally aware), to compassion for others in our global village, to action to transform the often inequitable realities of a dramatically skewed world?"[1]