Duverger, Maurice

Born June 5, 1917, in Angoulême, department of Charente. French scholar and political scientist; professor of political sociology at the University of Paris (1955) and political columnist for Le Monde and Nouvel Observateur. He graduated from the faculty of law at Bordeaux. Known for his work in political science.

Duverger’s works represent a departure from the juridical method of studying the political organization of society and call for a sociological approach to political institutions and processes. His work is chiefly directed toward investigating the sociology of political parties and political regimes, constructing a general theory of politics, and analyzing the methods of political science. Although his views on the nature of political power, the state, and democracy contain a number of interesting theses, they do not on the whole extend beyond the traditional bounds of bourgeois scholarship and are eclectic and inconsistent. With regard to the period of industrial capitalism, for example, Duverger acknowledges the correctness of the Marxist description of the bourgeois state; however, he regards the contemporary bourgeois state as a pluralistic democracy. Duverger may be regarded as a bourgeois scholar of liberal views; he is opposed to the remilitarization of West Germany, colonial wars, and neofascism.