A theoretically innovative, intellectually intense, and non-hierarchical department that encourages methodological and intellectual pluralism...
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 first 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 are a theoretically innovative department that encourages methodological and intellectual pluralism. Our research unsettles conventional assumptions and pushes the boundaries of both disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge. Our graduate education enables students to teach at the top research institutions and to contribute to scholarly and policy-oriented conversations. Our undergraduate education enlivens thinking about contemporary global and domestic political issues. We are a department that contributes to the mission of the University of Chicago, to the intellectual ferocity and anti-hierarchical character of this faculty-run institution. We are committed to providing the finest, most rigorous and inventive education experience in the country.
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.
