She was a professor in the Department of Political Science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and the director of The Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.

Until the summer of 2000 she was a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she served as the Director of its Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies.

[11] Dawisha responded that "one of the world's most important and reputable publishers declines to proceed with a book not because of its scholarly quality... but because the subject matter itself is too hot to handle".

[5] Dawisha's other major publications include: Russia and the New States of Eurasia: The Politics of Upheaval (Cambridge University Press, coauthored with Bruce Parrott, 1994); Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform: The Great Challenge, (Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2nd ed., 1990); The Kremlin and the Prague Spring, (California University Press, 1984); The Soviet Union in the Middle East: Politics and Perspectives, (Holmes and Meier for the Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1982); Soviet East-European Dilemmas: Coercion, Competition, and Consent, (Holmes and Meier for the Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1981); and Soviet Foreign Policy Toward Egypt, (Macmillan, 1979).

As Director of the Russian Littoral Project, Dawisha was the series editor (with Bruce Parrott) of the 10 volume "International Politics of Eurasia", published by M.E.

Sharpe, and also edited several volumes in that series, including: Making of Foreign Policy in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, (coedited with Adeed Dawisha, 1995), The End of Empire?

The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective, (coedited with Bruce Parrott); and The International Dimension of Post Communist Transitions in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, (1997).