From the very beginning, the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago has been a pioneer in the development of social scientific understandings of government and politics. Harold Gosnell, Harold Lasswell, Grant McConnell, Duncan MacRae, Charles Merriam, Hans Morgenthau, Herbert Storing, Leo Strauss, Leonard White, and Quincy Wright all taught at Chicago. Gabriel Almond, V.O. Key, Harold Lasswell, Robert Martin, Herman Pritchett, David Truman, and Herbert Simon -- the only political scientist ever awarded a Nobel Prize for his intellectual achievements -- all received their doctorates from Chicago. "The Chicago department was the cutting edge of development of the field of political science," Pritchett recalled of his days as a graduate student. "The students who were graduate students when I was became the leaders of the profession."
Much has changed at Chicago since Pritchett studied here, but fortunately the most important things have not. The University of Chicago and its Political Science Department have maintained the unabashed intellectualism, the disregard for disciplinary and subdisciplinary boundaries, the commitment to diversity of approach and method, and the pure appreciation of fine scholarship that have always been the distinguishing features of this institution.
We the members of the department believe that Chicago is the most exciting and challenging university in the world. We hope you will come see for yourself.
In the News...
The department extends its warmest congratulations to Lisa Wedeen; she has won the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.
The department is delighted to announce that Professor Linda Zerilli will join the Department beginning July 2008.
The department is delighted to announce that Stanislav Markus has accepted its offer of an assistant professorship beginning July 2008.
The department is pleased to announce that its colleague Roger B. Myerson, the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, has received the 2007 Nobel Prize in economics.
