Building the Chicago School

Heaney, M. T. and Hansen, J. M. (2006) Building the Chicago School. American Political Science Review, 100(4), pp. 589-596. (doi: 10.1017/S0003055406062460)

Abstract

The Chicago School of Political Science, which emerged at the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, is widely known for its reconception of the study of politics as a scientific endeavor on the model of the natural sciences. Less attention has been devoted to the genesis of the school itself. In this article, we examine the scientific vision, faculty, curriculum, and supporting institutions of the Chicago School. The creation of the Chicago School, we find, required the construction of a faculty committed to its vision of the science of politics, the muster of resources to support efforts in research and education, and the formation of curriculum to educate students in its precepts and methods. Its success as an intellectual endeavor, we argue, depended not only on the articulation of the intellectual goals but also, crucially, on the confluence of disciplinary receptiveness, institutional opportunity, and entrepreneurial talent in support of a science of politics.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Financial support was provided by the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Heaney, Dr Michael
• Authors: Heaney, M. T., and Hansen, J. M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: American Political Science Review
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press for American Political Science Association
• ISSN: 0003-0554
• ISSN (Online): 1537-5943