Stein Rokkan

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Stein Rokkan (1921 – 1979) was a Norwegian political scientist and sociologist. He was a professor in comparative politics at the University of Bergen.

Originally educated as a philosopher, Rokkan collaborated in the 1940s and 1950s as the assistant of Arne Næss. Later on, his interest turned towards the study of politics, especially the formation of political parties and European nation-states. It was during this period that he collaborated with Seymour Martin Lipset, "Lipset and Rokkan" becoming a duo that would forever be remembered by students of political sociology. He is also known as a pioneer user of computer technology in the social sciences.

Rokkan is the creator of a series of models for state and nation formations in Europe. He was president of the International Political Science Association from 1970 to 1973, president of UNESCO's International Social Science Council (1973-77), vice-president of the International Sociological Association from 1966 to 1970, and chairman (from 1970 to 1976) and co-founder of the European Consortium for Political Research.

He has written on cleavage, comparative history, party systems and Catalan nationalism, among other topics.

Selected works

• Party Systems and Voter Alignments. Co-edited with Seymour Martin Lipset (Free Press, 1967)
• Building States and Nations. Co-edited with Shmuel Eisenstadt (Sage, 1973)
• Economy, Territory, Identity: Politics of West European Peripheries. Co-authored with Derek W. Urwin (Sage, 1983)

Other sources

• State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan. Edited by Peter Flora (Oxford University Press, 1999)

External links

• Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies in Bergen
• Department of comparative politics in Bergen
• Norwegian Social Science Data Archives, co-founded and later led by Rokkan

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Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 17:47:11 PDT (GMT -0700)
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