Giovanni Sartori facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Giovanni Sartori
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| Born | 13 May 1924 Florence, Italy
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| Died | 4 April 2017 (aged 92) Rome, Italy
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| Citizenship | Italian |
| Alma mater | University of Florence |
| Occupation | Professor, political scientist |
| Awards | Princess of Asturias Awards for Social Sciences (2005) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Comparative politics |
| Institutions | Stanford University, Columbia University |
| Doctoral students | Gianfranco Pasquino |
| Influences | Norberto Bobbio |
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Giovanni Sartori (born May 13, 1924 – died April 4, 2017) was an Italian political scientist. He was an expert in studying how democracy works, how political parties are formed, and how different political systems compare around the world.
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About Giovanni Sartori
Giovanni Sartori was born in Florence, Italy, in 1924. He finished his studies in Political and Social Sciences at the University of Florence in 1946. He then started teaching there, focusing on modern philosophy and how governments are structured.
He became a lecturer in Modern Philosophy from 1950 to 1956, and then in Political Science from 1956 to 1963. Later, he became a full professor of Sociology. From 1966 to 1976, Sartori was a full professor of Political Science at the University of Florence.
During his time in Florence, Sartori did something very important: he started the first modern Political Science department in Italy. He also became the Dean (head) of this new department.
Sartori also taught at other famous universities. He was a professor at the European University Institute from 1974 to 1976. After that, he taught Political Science at Stanford University from 1976 to 1979. Finally, he worked as a special professor at Columbia University from 1979 until 1994, when he became a professor emeritus, meaning he retired but kept his title.
Giovanni Sartori was also a leader in international groups. He was the President of a special committee (COCTA) for the International Sociological Association (ISA) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) from 1970 to 1979. These groups help scholars from different countries work together.
He also started and edited the Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica (which means Italian Political Science Review). This was an important magazine for political science in Italy, and he ran it from 1971 to 2003.
Besides his academic work, Sartori wrote articles for Corriere della Sera, a major Italian newspaper. He shared his opinions on current events and politics with a wider audience.
Giovanni Sartori passed away in Rome in 2017 at the age of 92.
Awards and Achievements
Giovanni Sartori received many honors and awards throughout his life for his important work.
- 1971: He received a Gold Medal from the President of Italy for his contributions to culture and education.
- 1975: He became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a group that honors top thinkers.
- 1998: His book, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (published in 1976), won the Outstanding Book Award from the American Political Science Association (APSA).
- 1999: He was made a Commander of the Order of the Southern Cross in Brazil.
- 2005: He won the Princess of Asturias Awards for Social Sciences, which is a very prestigious award.
- 2005: He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), recognizing his long and important career.
- 2006: He received another Lifetime Achievement Award from the Qualitative Method Section of APSA for his excellent work on how to study social science.
- 2006: He also received a Life Achievement Award from the main American Political Science Association.
- 2007: He won The Mattei Dogan Foundation Prize in European Political Sociology.
- 2009: He received the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Political Science Association (IPSA), which honors scholars who do great cross-disciplinary research.
- 2013: He was given the Premio Isaiah Berlin award.
- 2014: He received the Grand Cross of the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins from Chile.
In 2015, he received a special honor called the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the president of Mexico.
He also received honorary doctorates (special degrees) from several universities, including:
- University of Genoa (1992)
- Georgetown University in Washington D.C. (1994)
- University of Guadalajara (1997)
- University of Buenos Aires (1998)
- Complutense University of Madrid (2001)
- University of Bucharest (2001)
- University of Athens
Since 2004, the American Political Science Association (APSA) gives out the Giovanni Sartori Book Award every year. This award celebrates Sartori's work on research methods and how to form clear ideas in political science.
Sartori's Research Focus
Giovanni Sartori studied many different things, but his most important contributions were about political parties, how countries design their laws and governments, and especially, how we use and understand political ideas.
Understanding Political Ideas
Sartori was very interested in how political ideas are formed, analyzed, and used. He noticed that in political science, people didn't always agree on the meaning of words, unlike in sciences like physics or biology. He wanted people to use ideas more carefully so everyone could understand them the same way.
In 1970, he helped create the first permanent research group for the International Political Science Association (IPSA). This group, called the Research Committee on Concepts and Methods (RC 01), aimed to fix the "Tower of Babel problem" in political science. This means they wanted to stop people from using the same words to mean different things, which can cause confusion, just like in the biblical story of the Tower of Babel where people suddenly spoke different languages. This group is still active today.
Sartori's 1970 article "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics" is very famous in the field. In it, he talked about "conceptual traveling" (using an idea from one situation in a new one) and "conceptual stretching" (when an idea doesn't quite fit a new situation). These ideas are still very important in social science research.
Political Parties and Systems
Sartori's book Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (1976) is considered a classic in the study of political parties. This book offers a detailed and respected way to sort and understand different types of party systems around the world. It helped many scholars understand how political parties work and interact in different countries.
See also
In Spanish: Giovanni Sartori para niños
- Polarized pluralism
- Qualitative research
- Robert A. Dahl
- Maurice Duverger
