Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) was a founder and icon of contemporary political science. A number of his books and articles have become part of the theoretical and conceptual basis of the field, and of social science in general. This volume brings together selected essays that examine Sartori as a scholar, university professor and intellectual. It is unique in covering all three aspects of Sartori's academic work: comparative politics, social science methodology and political theory. General overviews of Sartori's contribution to political science are complemented by chapters that focus on specific areas of his interest; and Sartori's theoretical and methodological contributions are examined alongside his extensive public appearances, which remain little known outside Italy.
What made Giovanni Sartori a 'giant' of political science, but also an extraordinary essayist and columnist? To answer this question the book edited by Kubát and Mejstřík succeeds in offering a thorough portrait of Sartori's personality, scholarly work and public engagement. Overall, a valuable addition to the existing analyses of Sartori's writings and a stimulating contribution to the discussion of the importance and scope of an applicable political science. -- Donatella Campus, University of Bologna
Penetrating and timely, this work is remarkable for showing us the difference a "giant" in the field can make in guiding the discipline and shaping the public political discourse in times of change. With liberal democracy under pressure and the relevance of our discipline at stake, such guidance would be most welcome these days. -- Reinhard Heinisch, University of Salzburg
Michal Kubát is Associated Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. His areas of expertise include democratic and non-democratic regimes, political opposition, and political systems of Central Europe, especially the Czech Republic and Poland. He has recently co-authored Undemokratische Regime: Theoretische Verortung und Fallbeispiele (Barbara Budrich, 2015).
Martin Mejstřík is Lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He has completed Area Studies at Charles University and Political Science at the University of Bologna. His research focus includes populism in Europe, South European (in particular Italian) politics, and political theories of Giovanni Sartori.
Marek Bankowicz is Professor of Political Science at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, and one of the leading political scholars in Poland. His research interests include comparative politics and political theory (democratic and nondemocratic regimes, political ideologies). He has published widely in Polish, English and Czech; his most recent books include Coup d’État: A Critical Theoretical Synthesis (2012), Krytycy marksizmu (2014), Demokracja według T. G. Masaryka (2015) and Maestro politologii: Exploracje polityki Giovanniego Sartoriego (2018). Bankowicz is also an influential commenter on Polish politics.
Klaus von Beyme is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg and Honorary Professor of Lomonosov State University of Moscow. For his work on parliaments, interest groups, elites, history of political ideas and studies on the relationship of art and politics, von Beyme is rightly considered one of the ‘founding fathers’ of contemporary political
science. Von Beyme is the author of dozens of journal articles, edited volumes and books. He is the recipient of the Schader Award (2008) and the Mattei Dogan Award (2012) by the International Political Science Association for High Achievement in Political Science. He was the president of IPSA from 1982 to 1985.
Giovanni Capoccia is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on democratisation, political extremism, theories of institutional development and European politics. His work has appeared in many international journals and has received several professional awards. He is the author of Defending Democracy: Responses to Extremism
in Interwar Europe (2005) and co-editor of The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies (2010). He is currently completing a monograph on legal and judicial responses to the extreme right in postwar Western Europe.
Oreste Massari is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Comparative Politics at the Sapienza University of Rome. His research interests are comparative politics, especially democratic regimes, parties and party systems, electoral systems and Italian politics. He is the author of many journal articles, book chapters and monographs in Italian and English, including La nuova Politica: Idee, soggetti, istituzioni (1999) and I partiti politici nelle democrazie contemporanee (2004; foreword by Giovanni Sartori). Apart from his scholarly work, Massari is also a publicist and commenter on Italian politics.
Miroslav Novák is Professor of Political Science at the CEVRO Institute (School of Political Studies) in Prague. He is one of the founders of political science as a discipline in the Czech Republic following the fall of communism. After returning from his Swiss exile, Novák joined Charles University in 1990, becoming its first full professor of political science in 2004. His research interests include party systems, theory of democracy and French political science (Raymond Aron, Maurice Duverger). Novák published widely in Czech, French and English, and is — among many other appointments — an editorial board member of the Czech Sociological Review and the Czech Journal of Political Science.
Gianfranco Pasquino is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Bologna and Senior Adjunct Professor at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University. Fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei, his most recent books are Italian Democracy. How It Works (Routledge 2020), Libertà inutile. Profilo ideologico dell’Italia repubblicana (UTET 2021), Tra scienza e politica. Una autobiografia (UTET 2022) and Il lavoro intellettuale (UTET 2023). He has co-edited The Oxford Handbookeonardi of Italian Politics (Oxford University Press 2015) and the Dizionario di Politica (UTET-De Agostini 2016, 4a ed., revised) and co-authored (with Riccardo Pelizzo), The Culture of Accountability. A Democratic Virtue (Routledge 2022).
Maxmilián Strmiska is Professor of Political Science at Masaryk University, Brno, and University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. He has held fellowships at the Universita degli Studi, Pisa, Universita degli Studi, Firenze, Freie Universität, Berlin, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli, University of Manchester and McGill University, Montréal. In his research and teaching, he focuses on political parties and party systems. He is the recipient of the Canadian Studies Faculty Enrichment Award Program, the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Research Grant and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Scholarship.
