Brian Galligan was born in Dalby, QLD in 1945. He graduated in Economics and Commerce from the University of Queensland, and has a Masters and PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto. In the early 1980s he was Senior Research Fellow, Department of Political Science at the Australian National University and Deputy Director, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations. From 1984-1992 he lectured at La Trobe University. Galligan was Professor and Director of the Federalism Research Centre at the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU from 1992-94. Since 1995 he has been a Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne and later became a director of the university's Centre for Public Policy. Galligan is author of a number of books on Australian citizenship, politics and political economy, and has co-authored publications including Beyond the Protective State (1992) with Ann Capling.