Jean Blondel

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Jean Blondel (born Toulon, 26 October 1929) is a French political scientist specialising in comparative politics. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute in Florence, and visiting professor at the University of Siena.

He graduated from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris in 1953 and from St Antony's College (Oxford) where he stayed from 1953 to 1955.[1] He was a lecturer at Keele University from 1958 to 1963, a fellow at Yale University in 1963-4 and then moved to the University of Essex in 1964, where he founded the Department of Government.[1] He started the European Consortium for Political Research in 1969 and directed it for ten years following its foundation meeting in 1970.[1][2] Having left Essex in 1984, he was appointed scholar of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 1984 before becoming professor of political science at the European University Institute in Florence form 1985 to 1994.[1] He holds honorary doctorates form the Universities of Salford and Essex in the United Kingdom, Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium and Turku, Finland.[1]

He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Europaea.[1] In 2004 he was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science "for his outstanding contribution to the professionalisation of European political science, both as a pioneering comparativist and an institution builder".[3]

Blondel is particularly noted for the contributions he has made to the theory of party systems, the comparative study of cabinets, and the relations between parties and governments.

[edit] Selected publications

  • Voters, parties and leaders : the social fabric of British politics. Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1963.
  • An Introduction to Comparative Government. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.
  • Comparative legislatures. Englewood Cliffs, N.J : Prentice-Hall, 1973.
  • Political parties. A genuine case for discontent?. London : Wildwood House, 1978.
  • The Discipline Of Politics. London & Boston : Butterworths, 1981.
  • Political leadership : towards a general analysis. London & Beverly Hills : SAGE, 1987.
  • Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds.) Cabinets in Western Europe . Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1988.
  • Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds.) Governing together : the extent and limits of joint decision-making in Western European cabinets. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1993.
  • Blondel, Jean and Maurizio Cotta (eds.) Party and government : an inquiry into the relationship between governments and supporting parties in liberal democracies. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1996.
  • Blondel, Jean, Richard Sinnott, and Palle Svensson People and Parliament in the European Union : participation, democracy, and legitimacy. Oxford, England : Clarendon Press, 1998.
  • Blondel, Jean and Maurizio Cotta (eds.) The nature of party government : a comparative European perspective. New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
  • Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds.) Cabinets in Eastern Europe . Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2001.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Profile: Jean Blondel. European University Institute. Retrieved on 2008-05-13.
  2. ^ Budge, Ian (2006). "Blondel and the development of European political science". European Political Science 5 (3): 315-327. 
  3. ^ "Former Professor wins Skytte award", Wyvern, University of Essex, June 2004. Retrieved on 2008-05-13.