西缪·马丁·李普赛特

西摩·马丁·利普塞特（Seymour Martin Lipset，1922年3月18日—2006年12月31日），是 20 世纪美国最具影响力的比较社会学家、政治社会学家之一，同时也是政治学家、美国例外论与民主理论的核心代表学者。他的研究横跨政治社会学、工会组织、社会分层、舆论和知识分子个人生涯的社会学等多个领域。早年为社会主义者，晚年成为新保守主义者。曾任美国政治学会（APSA）主席（1981-1982）、美国社会学会（ASA）主席（1993）。

代表作《政治人：政治的社会基础》（Political Man：The Social Bases of Politics），发表后引起重大影响。利普塞特提出的“政治发展与现代化理论”在战后一度盛行，该理论认为社会经济的的发展必将导致民主政治的发展。但在解释拉美国家的军事政变时遇到困难。

在他2006年去世时，《卫报》称他为“民主和美国例外论的主要理论家”。《纽约时报》称他是“杰出的社会学家、政治学家和美国独特性的敏锐理论家”。《华盛顿邮报》称他是“过去半个世纪最有影响力的社会科学家之一。

Seymour Martin Lipset ( LIP-sit; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and the sociology of intellectual life. He also wrote extensively about the conditions for democracy in comparative perspective. He was president of both the American Political Science Association (1979–1980) and the American Sociological Association (1992–1993). A socialist in his early life, Lipset later moved to the right, and was considered to be one of the first neoconservatives.

At his death in 2006, The Guardian called him "the leading theorist of democracy and American exceptionalism"; The New York Times labeled him "a pre-eminent sociologist, political scientist and incisive theorist of American uniqueness" and The Washington Post reported that he was "one of the most influential social scientists of the past half century."

Early life and education

Lipset was born in Harlem, New York City, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He grew up in the Bronx among Irish, Italian and Jewish youth. "I was in that atmosphere where there was a lot of political talk," Lipset recalled, "but you never heard of Democrats or Republicans; the question was communists, socialists, Trotskyists, or anarchists. It was all sorts of different left wing groups." From an early age, Seymour was active in the Young People's Socialist League, "an organization of young Trotskyists that he would later head." He graduated from City College of New York, where he was an anti-Stalinist leftist. He received a PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1949. Before that he taught at the University of Toronto.

Career

Lipset was the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and then became the George D. Markham Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. He also taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Toronto, and George Mason University, where he was the Hazel Professor of Public Policy.

Lipset was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He was the only person to have been President of both the American Political Science Association (1979–1980) and the American Sociological Association (1992–1993). He also served as the President of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Sociological Research Association, the World Association for Public Opinion Research, the Society for Comparative Research, and the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Society in Vienna.

Lipset received the MacIver Prize for Political Man (1960) and, in 1970, the Gunnar Myrdal Prize for The Politics of Unreason.

In 2001, Lipset was named among the top 100 American intellectuals, as measured by academic citations, in Richard Posner's book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.

"Some Social Requisites of Democracy"

One of Lipset's most cited works is "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy" (1959), a key work on modernization theory, on democratization, and an article that includes the Lipset hypothesis that economic development leads to democracy.

Lipset was one of the first proponents of the theory of modernization", which states that democracy is the direct result of economic growth, and that "[t]he more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy." Lipset's modernization theory has continued to be a significant factor in academic discussions and research relating to democratic transitions. It has been referred to as the "Lipset hypothesis" and the "Lipset thesis".

The Lipset hypothesis has been challenged by Guillermo O'Donnell, Adam Przeworski and Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.