International Forum for Democratic Studies Research Council Member

Philippe Schmitter

European University Institute

Philippe C. Schmitter is currently professor emeritus at the European University Institute (EUI). He was a member of its Department of Political and Social Sciences from 1996 to 2004, after ten years at Stanford University. He was educated at Dartmouth College, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the University of Geneva, and he received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Schmitter taught for many years at the University of Chicago (1967-1982) and held visiting appointments at the University of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the Institute for the Integration of Latin America in Buenos Aires, Harvard University, the Universities of Geneva, Zürich, Paris and Mannheim, the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, the Fundación Juan March in Madrid and the Instituto de Ciencias Sociais in Lisbon. Before coming to Stanford in 1986, he spent the previous four years as a professor at the EUI. Currently, he has been a recurrent visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest, at the Istituto delle Scienze Humanistiche in Florence and the University of Siena.

Dr. Schmitter has conducted research on comparative politics and regional integration in both Latin America and Western Europe, with special emphasis on the politics of organized interests. His dissertation dealt with the rise and persistence of corporatism in Brazil and his early work focused on the role of this mode of interest intermediation in Latin America and Western Europe. With Gerhard Lehmbruch, he edited Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation and Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making. He is the co-author (with Guillermo O’Donnell) of Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (4 vols.) and is currently completing a book on Essaying the Consolidation of Democracy. In recent years, he has devoted increasing attention to the emerging polity of the European Union, first in a co-authored book on Governance in the European Union (with Gary Marks, Fritz Scharpf and Wolfgang Streeck) and later in a book entitled: How to Democratize the European Union…and Why Bother? He also wrote a Green Paper with Alexandre Trechsel for the Council of Europe on The Future of Democracy in Europe.

Dr. Schmitter has been the recipient of numerous professional awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1978, and has been vice-president of the American Political Science Association. He was awarded the award for lifetime achievement in European politics by the ECPR in 2008, the award for lifetime achievement in the study of European integration by EUSA, the Mattei Dogan Prize of the IPSA and the Johan Skytte Prize by Uppsala University—all in 2009.

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Forum News

“Journal of Democracy Classics: What Democracy Is…And Is Not,” co-authored with Terry Lynn Karl, Journal of Democracy (Dec. 12, 2014)

Forum Publications

“Crisis and Transition, but Not Decline,” Journal of Democracy (Jan. 29, 2015)