Giovanni Sartori in Memoriam (1924-2017)

The entire IPSA family was saddened to learn that prominent Italian political scientist and former IPSA Executive Committee member (1967-76) Giovanni Sartori has passed away. On behalf of IPSA and the global political science community, our deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones.  

Professor Sartori was Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, New York. He made lasting contributions to the fields of democratic theory, party systems, and constitutional engineering. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was awarded several prizes, including the Outstanding Book Award presented by the American Political Science Association. He served as Dean of the Department of Political Science at the University of Florence from 1969 to 1972, then as Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at Columbia University from 1979 to 1994, and was later appointed Professor Emeritus. He also taught at Stanford, Yale, and Harvard University.

Sartori founded the Research Committee (RC1) on Concepts and Methods, the first research committee recognized by IPSA in 1976. He also served as an IPSA Executive Committee member from 1967 to 1976, making an important mark on IPSA. Sartori was also the recipient of the IPSA’s Karl Deutsch Award in 2009.

His recent publications include Logica, metodo e linguaggio nelle scienze sociali (2011), Il Paese degli struzzi (2011), La democrazia in trenta lezioni (edited by Lorenza Foschini, Mondadori 2008), Mala costituzione e altri malanni (Laterza 2006), and Semantics, Concepts and Comparative Method, edited by S. Sepheriades, (Papazisis, Greek edition 2005).